800 actor Madhur Mittal talks about the challenges of doing the Muttiah Muralitharan biopic

Actor Madhur Mittal, who had begun his acting career as a child artist, rose to international fame with the Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire. In his recent release titled 800, which was the official biopic of legendary Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, Madhur Mittal played the protagonist. In a recent interview, the actor talked about accepting the role and the challenging of playing a real life figure.

Madhur Mittal had replaced Vijay Sethupathi in the film

Madhur Mittal was speaking to DNA India when he opened up about being nervous about accepting the role at first. Earlier, renowned Tamil star Vijay Sethupathi was signed to do the role but backed out due to creative differences. Addressing the same, Mittal stated, “It was daunting but I took it as a role, not like replacing an accomplished actor. The role was challenging on its own and I decided to focus on doing my best in bringing that to life.”

Mittal also spoke about how it was difficult for him to strike a balance between realism and imitation of Muralitharan’s mannerisms, stating, “We had the obvious challenge of getting the look and the action right. He is so familiar that anyone who has ever seen cricket in the last 30 years knows exactly what Murali sir’s action looks like, how he is on the field.”

800 had a theatrical release on October 6

Mittal further spoke about their aim always was to assure that the story and the emotion don’t get lost, instead of getting too hung up on the mimicry of it all and ending up being a gimmick. 

800 was directed by M.S.Sripathy. Besides Mittal, the Tamil sports drama also features popular actors like Mahima Nambiar, Nassar and King Ratnam. 800 had a theatrical release on October 6, and is currently streaming on JioCinema.