At the age of 36, most boxers retire. So when Vineet Kumar Singh was selected for the role of playing a bixer by Anurag Kashyap, he had a huge mountain to climb. But 700 days of training, 20 injuries, 2000 kms of travel later, Vineet had reached his goal. His effort was appreciated by professional boxers, and when he roars, “Pata hai na kaun hai hum? Mike Tyson hai hum Uttar Pradesh ke,” — all that effort looks convincing.

“I could not transform myself physically overnight, or even in three or four months for that matter. It took me almost three years to transform myself. I packed everything I had and sold all my valuables and left for Punjab for training,” Vineet Kumar Singh said in an interview with Scroll.

As you can see in the above video, Vineet was trained by Pradeep Bhatia, who said, “He came to me in 2011-2012. His condition was really bad. He was thin, like a dried up man. In 2 years, we made sure that he has a good body.”

He also learnt boxing from MMA coach Hifzur. “Vineet came to me in 2016, and said that he wanted to learn boxing. He came and started punching left, right and centre,” he said.

So to learn the tricks of the trade, Vineet shifted base to Patiala in Punjab, and started training as hard as possible. “He would come at 5 AM, earlier than all the other kids,” said Anudeep Singh, a boxing coach. While training, Vineet never threw his weight around as an actor, and behaved normally with all his contemporaries.

“As time went on, he would train 3 times, 4 times. It was so much that all the time he would train. He would train three PM, 10 AM, 12 noon,” said Harpreet Singh, an ex coach of Indian boxing team.

What’s extremely amazing is that VIneet didn’t shy away from real boxing fights. And once even broke his rib, but he continued to practice even while he was in the hospital.

We are really excited about the movie, since we have no words about the kind of transformation Vineet was able to achieve.