When Sony LIV top brass asked Nikkhil Advani to work on the series adaptation of Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's Freedom At Midnight, the director laughed nervously. "Karenge kaise?" was his reply to the streamer's executives who were offering him his next project at the wrap party of Rocket Boys, another period drama.
The opportunity to work on a series that narrates the turbulent division of a united India and the conversations that happened among the country's founding parents behind closed doors was tempting and daunting.
Nikkhil Advani, who is looking forward to the premiere of Freedom At Midnight season two, eventually took the reins of the ambitious and sprawling period drama which concludes tomorrow.
To recreate the scale of the gone-by era, the director had a few things in mind. For starters, he wanted the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the original Viceroy's House, to serve as the home of India's last Viceroy Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina Mountbatten in the show.
"We wanted to shoot in the Rashtrapati Bhavan but the amount of equipment we wanted was a security risk," Nikkil Advani told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
Perhaps the only venue in India that could have matched the grandeur and scale required for Freedom At Midnight was Jodhpur's Umaid Bhawan Palace, managed by the Taj Group.
"Shooting in Umaid Bhawan was an incredible experience. They have tours of the palace and grounds throughout the day, you can pay for it and go on a long walk. To shoot over there, stay over there, to have access to the parts of the property which are not open to the public. The Taj Group, which runs the Umaid Bhawan as a hotel, really opened it up for us. Otherwise, how do you show the scale of Rashtrapati Bhavan?" the showrunner added.
The Viceroy's House features prominently in Freedom At Midnight and the makers thank Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur in the closing credits of every episode for welcoming the team into his ancestral home.
"At the end of the day, Rashtrapati Bhavan has some 500 rooms. It was built for two people. Most of the Presidents didn't stay in the Bhavan, they stayed in the press office. They were all Gandhian, they were very Gandhian and spartan in that sort of a way. It was very important for us to get the scale right. Whether it was the scale of emotion, patriotism, decisions or the visuals," Nikkhil Advani said.
The director said the cast and crew of Freedom At Midnight shot at Umaid Bhawan Palace for seven-eight days.
"Rest of the stuff, whether it's Mountbatten's study, his offices, dining hall, everything was done on sets. The facade, the stairs, the corridors, the main atrium, the lawns, the stairs leading to the lawns, all that is Umaid Bhawan. Where I knew I wanted to take more time, when I need the actors to be a little more intimate in intense scenes, all of that was filmed on sets," he revealed.
Nikkhil Advani was, however, able to get one of the real iconic venues for the show.
"We have shown actual Kashmir in Freedom At Midnight. In fact, Hari Niwas Palace is actually Raja Hari Singh's palace, the then king of Kashmir," he added.
Freedom At Midnight stars Sidhant Gupta, Chirag Vohra, Rajendra Chawla, Arif Zakaria, Ira Dubey, Malishka Mendonsa, Rajesh Kumar, KC Shankar, Luke McGibney, Cordelia Bugeja, Alistair Finlay, Andrew Cullum, and Richard Teverson in prominent roles.
About Umaid Bhawan
Named after Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur, who oversaw its construction between 1929 and 1943, Umaid Bhawan Palace today ranks among the world's largest inhabited residences, covering 26 acres of pristine gardens. Out of its 347 rooms, the palace allocates 70 rooms to Taj Hotels management today.
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