‘I stuck to a vegan, gluten-free diet to play a lean, mean kabbadi coach’

Actress

Tamannaah

is doing a sports drama for the first time in her career with the upcoming Gopichand-starrer Seetimarr. Tamannaah plays a kabaddi

coach

in the Sampath Nandi directorial and it’s a role the actress is taking very seriously. She’s training harder than ever in the gym and is working with professional kabaddi players to make sure she nails the part.

“I play the coach of the

Telangana kabaddi

team. It’s my first sports drama and I’m very excited. The only issue was that I’ve never played the sport before. But I did everything I could to look the part,” says Tamannaah. Prepping to play a kabaddi coach was as much about learning the game as it was about getting in shape for it. “I never imagined that I would get to play kabaddi in my life, let alone on the sets of the film. We have state level kabaddi players on the sets all the time and they’re guiding us about the finer nuances of the sport and getting our looks right,” says the Abhinetri star.

She adds, “For a character like this, looking fit, lean and stronger is very important. My training has become a lot more intense and my workout regime now includes strength and agility training along with yoga. That’s how I’m building my strength. I’ve also stuck to a vegetarian,

gluten-free diet

.” Tamannaah and

Gopichand

play rival kabaddi coaches in the film, and while Tamannaah coaches the Telangana team, Gopichand plays the Andhra coach. “Besides learning kabaddi, I also had to get a hang of the Telangana dialect, I had to learn the Telangana slang. It’s really challenging, but Sampath sir is helping me with the dialogue delivery. I hope I can pull it off.”

While the actress has ticked off a major box by doing her first sports drama, Tamannaah says her wishlist is far from complete. “I definitely would want to do a dance-based film, it’s been on my mind for a while now. We’ve so many films in Bollywood such as ABCD, Street Dancer, etc, that revolve around dance. I wish we can make such films in Tollywood as well,” she says, signing off.