Sushant Singh Rajput wasn’t spiritually inclined before Kedarnath, was ‘a man of science’: Director Abhishek Kapoor

Meanwhile, Kapoor recently recalled how the film impacted and influenced SSR and marked a shift in his personality. “When I went for my first recce (to Kedarnath), I took him (Sushant) and Sara with me. In the beginning, he wasn’t very… He was a man of science. He wasn’t as spiritually into it as he was by the time the film was over,” Kapoor said during a recent chat with Siddharth Kannan.

“In the beginning, he was not sure. I remember he had also gone to the facility where they do the God Particle experiment in Switzerland. There, they also have a huge sculpture of Lord Shiva in the tandava position… a Nataraja sculpture. I think things like spirituality and god find you at the right time. They come to you and find you. It found him (SSR) at the same time we were making this film. Experiencing the presence of Lord Shiva in a science place like that, he started connecting the dots. We both discovered the power of Shivji while making this movie,” he added.

“We shot Kedarnath in 2016-2017 and filmed Kai Po Che in 2013. So, it had been a few years since we worked together. There was a slight change in him as an individual, but he worked so hard. I remember it was the first day of the shoot for both him and Sara. We were shooting a rain sequence in Kedarnath and it was so cold there… must have been 1-2 degrees Celsius. We also shot at night because the circumstances were such that we had to. But, SSR led the way. He did it first. The next day, Sara saw him doing it and realised that if this guy is doing it, I will too. I don’t think anyone else would go through that kind of pain except him,” the director asserted.

Sushant passed away in 2020, reportedly by suicide. The CBI initiated an investigation into his death, but findings have yet to be disclosed. His demise captured the nation’s attention for months during the first Covid-induced lockdown, significantly influencing the industry and sparking heightened discussions about nepotism.