{"id":591348,"date":"2026-08-21T07:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/591348\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T07:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:46:11","slug":"adil-hussain-i-didnt-imitate-him-i-embodied-air-marshal-patneys-sincerity-dedication-masterful-understanding-of-strategic-warfare-hindi-movie-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/591348\/","title":{"rendered":"Adil Hussain: I didn\u2019t imitate him. I embodied Air Marshal Patney\u2019s sincerity, dedication & masterful understanding of strategic warfare | Hindi Movie News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AdilIt is important that it doesn\u2019t become a cheap, superfluous, trivial portrayal of a highly dignified person who understands operational air command and has dedicated his life to serving the nation. He\u2019s a giant of a human being. To be able to depict that, I guess, is the most challenging part\u00a0\u2013 Adil Hussain\u00a0 When the Golden Arrows Squadron of the Indian Air Force<\/a> pulled off what became the world\u2019s highest-altitude air operation, they changed the course of the Kargil War<\/a>. Air Marshal Vinod Patney (retd), who served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Air Command during the 1999 war, was awarded the Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal (SYSM) for his leadership. In the series Operation Safed Sagar, Adil Hussain<\/a> plays the officer \u2013 delivering a performance marked by a commanding ease. In a conversation with us, Adil spoke about the series, what it took to step into the role, and how he found the human being behind a senior officer\u2019s uniform.\u2018I said I would read the entire script and decide whether to be part of it or not\u2019Before Adil agreed to play Air Marshal Patney, he had a few questions. \u201c\u2018Is it a hyper-jingoistic thing? There would be a bit of jingoism or violence because it\u2019s a war story. But are we glorifying it? Or are we showing it so that people do not get inspired to become violent?\u2019 These were the questions I had,\u201d he says. \u201cI said I would read the entire script and decide whether to be part of it or not,\u201d he tells us, adding, \u201cAnd after reading two or three episodes, I realised it was very different. So I was very sure about Operation Safed Sagar from the beginning.\u201d\u201860% of the success of this series is because the creator is a former Air Force officer\u2019Adil credits much of the show\u2019s realistic portrayal to the Air Force consultants. \u201cOf course it makes a huge difference,\u201d he explains, \u201cThe nuances, the details of their lives, the technicalities, the way they behave, look, think about their relationship between them and their aircraft, the way someone cleans the aircraft \u2013 all these things, when you see them by yourself, make a huge difference. When you have access to the actual people, actual aircraft, actual machinery, the person who comes and cleans the hangar, the person who works in the canteen, how the senior airmen behave, how they have fun and how they carry themselves in every aspect of their airfield \u2013 it\u2019s a huge advantage.\u201dBesides, it traces back to one person: co-creator Kushal Srivastava, who served in the Air Force himself before becoming a creator. \u201cI would say almost 50%, or maybe 60%, of the success of this particular series is because Kushal Srivastava is from the Air Force,\u201d he emphasises.\u2018I had the advantage of playing the role, not the character\u2019Air Marshal Patney\u2019s Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal makes him a decorated figure within the Air Force, but he is not a face familiar to the public. An actor playing him cannot draw on decades of footage and public memory. \u201cI had the advantage of playing the role, not the character. There is a difference. Characters are defined by the characteristics of the person. The role is defined by what role this person has played in the entire thing,\u201d shares Adil. He elaborates,\u201cHe has this no-nonsense attitude, an absolutely dedicated person. I did not imitate him. I didn\u2019t have to look like him, I didn\u2019t have to walk like him. But the inner attitude \u2013 his sincerity, dedication and absolute masterful understanding of strategic warfare \u2013 these are universal qualities of any great leader. I embodied that.\u201dHe reaches for a comparison outside military drama: Invictus (2009), in which Morgan Freeman played Nelson Mandela. For Adil, Freeman\u2019s performance offered a useful lesson in approaching a real-life figure without becoming an imitation of them. \u201cMorgan Freeman never wanted to look like Nelson Mandela. He played the role, and I think it\u2019s one of the best depictions of Nelson Mandela, in spite of him not looking like or behaving like him or sounding like him. So I took a similar artistic decision. I\u2019m not going to imitate him. I will play the role \u2013 a person who embodies all these great qualities of a leader, which is called the archetype,\u201d Adil tells us.\"It<\/p>\n

It is important that it doesn\u2019t become a cheap, superfluous, trivial portrayal of a highly dignified person who understands operational air command and has dedicated his life to serving the nation. He\u2019s a giant of a human being. To be able to depict that, I guess, is the most challenging part\u00a0\u2013 Adil Hussain\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The Air Force personnel gave me access to sit in the pilot seat & look at the console’Filming at Air Force stations came with its own discipline. He recalls, \u201cI shoot in Mumbai all the time, and suddenly I get to know that there\u2019s an Air Force Station in Madh Island. And then you\u2019re there and everything is confiscated at the gate. There are strictly enforced rules that no photography is allowed. In hindsight, we were really happy to be in each other\u2019s company. We could dedicate our time to preparing for the scenes that were coming up.\u201dThe warmth, he says, went both ways. \u201cThe kind of warmth that all the Air Force personnel had, whether at Madh Island or Chandigarh Air Force Station, was wonderful. They had all seen my films, so they were very sweet. They came to take photos and sometimes gave me access to sit in the pilot seat and look at the console. That was amazing.\u201d The officers, watching a shoot unfold for the first time, came away with new respect. \u201cThey were also realising how hard it is to make a series. They were telling us, \u2018Oh my God, we didn\u2019t know it was so hard.\u2019 You stand in the sun for hours and take one shot. I was like \u2013 yes, it is,\u201d he laughs.\"<strong>Adil<\/p>\n

Adil and director of the series, Oni Sen, seen here in a behind-the-scene still. Before the filming began, Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa (retd) and Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh (current Chief of Air Staff) spoke to Adil about the man he was playing. Elaborating on the performance, Adil says, \u201cIt\u2019s a privilege and an honour to be cast in this role. And to be able to bring in some credibility to the role, that people are liking it \u2013 I\u2019m very happy about it\u201dAdil Hussain\u00a0speaks about the dignity and duty of playing a highly decorated IAF officer<\/p>\n

\u2018Dignity, grace are disappearing… It is important to inspire that\u2019If there\u2019s a word viewers and Adil return to more than any other in explaining why the portrayal landed, it\u2019s dignity. Adil explains, \u201cThe difference between the enemy and you is that you are dignified, you are graceful. You do not behave the way your enemy would. That is the difference: you do not fall from your grace, and yet you protect your country with utmost dedication. That is one of the strengths of this series.\u201dHe extends the thought well past the show itself. \u201cDignity and grace have been lost, or are slowly disappearing from human society in every part of the world. So it is important to bring about, or inspire, or fill in the aspiration of people to walk towards a higher quality of human beings \u2013 dignity, grace, compassion, dedication, honesty, serving with absolute sincerity, whatever you do, whether you are an actor, a farmer, an airman, a military person, a doctor or a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is important that it doesn\u2019t become a cheap, superfluous, trivial portrayal of a highly dignified person who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[252477,267470,146,85,157776,46,267468,267469,397],"class_list":["post-591348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adil-hussain","tag-air-marshal-vinod-patney","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-indian-air-force","tag-israel","tag-kargil-war","tag-kushal-srivastava","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}