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There has been much buzz around the OTT series, Inspector Avinash which stars Randeep Hooda. Actor Rajniesh Duggal plays one of the crucial characters in it and is excited about how the audience would react to the project that was released on May 18.
“I’m playing the role of Ranvijay Ahlawat. He is a gold medalist and a very strong, intelligent, smart inspector. He is gotten into the team to balance the team because he’s by the book and never breaks the rule. He is someone who is street smart, intelligent and knows every single nook and corner of the area under his jurisdiction and well aware of the law and criminals as well. He can think like the criminals but doesn’t break any rule. So he is not a schemer, he is who he is. He is very straightforward. Ranvijay is from Meerut. Everyone will like him I guess,” smiles the actor.
Rajniesh does relate to the character. He worked on himself well enough to bring out who Ranvijay is on screen.
“I had to know a lot about the character, about cops and the good thing is that I always enjoy playing a man in uniform on screen, which is why I took Laal Rang and also took the role of SP Gajraj Singh in Laal Rang. Also, my Nanaji (grandfather), Mamaji (uncle) are in the police and have an army background. So that was the big reason for me to take this up and I enjoy playing roles which are a sort of either patriotic or solving crime. How relatable it is, that I think as an actor once you start living the character is when you relate to it or you have to. There’s a little bit of Rajniesh Duggal in Ranvijay Ahlawat,” he shares.
Rajniesh had earlier worked with Randeep in Laal Rang. This is their second project together.
“Of course, Randeep and I worked in Laal Rang, which was an amazing experience and a great film, we may not have seen the numbers, but it is a cult. We continue to receive fan mail about it. I still receive a lot of fan mails and messages about ‘when Laal Rang 2 is coming?’. But I liked playing SP Gajraj Singh in Laal Rang. And, in fact even though with Randeep I barely had 2 or 3 scenes together, but yes here this is totally different. After 5-6 years, I’m working with him again. I loved working with him. It’s a pleasure because you learn so much from this guy. He definitely thinks of the entire scene like a director which is great, and that’s one thing I like about him. So you will see a lot of rift between me and his character. They’re totally poles apart. That’s the beauty of it and that’s where Inspector Avinash and Inspector Ahlawat have fire between them,” he adds.
Inspector Avinash was shot in UP, Kanpur, Lucknow, Firozabad, Ayodhya, Malihabad. We have shot in Rajasthan, Jaipur, Sambhar, Shekhawati, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and a lot many places. In Maharashtra, the locations in Baramati and the studio work were shot in Mumbai. The team filmed it for almost two years.
“There are a lot of interesting incidents that happened while making this project. I remember it was the time when we were shooting in Rajasthan and Ayodhya. So whenever we had a day off or a break then the evenings used to be fun. While in Ayodhya, we went for a boat ride in the River Saryu. No one will believe it but we did a 100m sprint in the middle of the river and it was insane and that experience was crazy. We could do it because along with us we had a local person, who is a STF officer in real life. He took us there. So that was amazing and will stay with me forever. There are many more memories, a lot of pranks on set, a lot of things which happened and sometimes we just break into a dance because Shalin is also a dancer and we used to make reels together,” he says.
