Had it not been for the on-going coronavirus-triggered pandemic, Rinzing would have made his debut by now. His first film, the action-thriller Squad, opened on Zee5 only on Friday, November 12, with Danny Denzongpa’s six feet three inches son playing Bhim, a broken Special Forces agent, who has absolutely no resemblance to the actor playing him.
Reeling back to the mahurat shot that required him to line up with the others, then, walk down the middle and go wham bang, Rinzing recounts with laugh, “When Nilesh (Squad’s writer-producer-director Nilesh Sahay) was rapping out instructions, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s a lot to do here and only one take.’ But it was fun!”
It’s been a three-year long roller-coaster ride since, with an errant virus playing spoiltsport and locking the world in for months at a stretch. “The wait was a pain,” admits the young actor, informing that he spent the initial months of the lockdown with his family. “But then I got bored and went off to Goa, spending two months at a friend’s place in Vagator.”
When Covid restrictions were relaxed slightly, Squad was one of the first film units to take a chartered flight to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, to shoot the remaining action sequeces in the midst of not just a pandemic but also political unrest in the Eastern European country. “Nilesh pampered us a lot, yet was very stict on the set,” Rinzing shares, excited to be working with Mad Max, Casino Royale and the Matrix series stunt coordinator and action unit director Keir Beck on the film.
The journey so far however hasn’t been easy. Not just professionally but even personally there have been plenty of ups and downs. “I tested positive for Covid, and was out of action for a while. Then, a back injury I had suffered when I was around 18-19, lifting heavy weights but not doing it properly, resurfaced. I also got dengue and that set me back for another couple of months. It’s only now that I have started working out properly again,” Rinzing admits.
Quiz him on his workout regime and the one-man army says, “I do an hour of cardio and then work on one particular part of the body. I am also paying special attention to my diet, staying on a calorie deficit diet for now because I want to lose a few pounds.”
What’s the scariest thing about being an actor, you wonder, and he muses, “That once you’re in, I guess you lose your privacy.” Growing up, how did he view his dad’s profession? Did you ever wish he had a normal 9 am-5 pm job? Did being the son of a villain ever rankle? “To me, what my dad did was normal,” Rinzing says shortly.
Can we now hope to see him in a film with his dad? He shakes his head, “No, I wouldn’t want to do a film with dad just yet.” So, were does he see himself a year, five years, maybe 20 years from now? “Better than I am today,” he quips.
Finally, was there any one thing and any one place that he had yearned to do or visit during the pandemic. Pat comes the answer, “London, where I stayed while studying for a degree in international business and simultaneously, a degree in theatre. And I want to go some place where I can swim and tan.”
