Shriyam Bhagnani did more than play Hetal Dave in Sumo Didi; she spent close to a year learning to move, train and think like India’s first female sumo wrestler. The ZEE5 sports biopic, released on October 23, 2026, follows Dave from a conservative Marwari home to sumo rings in Japan.
A nine-month daily shift to build an athlete
Preparing for the role meant showing up like an athlete. Bhagnani trained around seven to eight hours every day across nine months. Her routine mixed weight training, yoga, physiotherapy, and sumo and judo practice.
The result, she told Hindustan Times, was not a visual effects job: “Everything was real. There’s no AI or editing. Everything you see in the film, I have done it, including pushing that truck.” Bhagnani added that, just as a child takes nine months to be born, those nine months gave birth to an athlete in her. That daily volume is the detail missing from many transformation headlines.
Playing a living person raises the stakes
This is Bhagnani’s first leading role in a film, and she said carrying a biopic was a different responsibility. Dave is alive and close to the actor’s age, so audiences can compare the performance with the real person easily. The pressure, she explained, was not about leading a film but about doing justice to a story that is not the usual sports biopic.
The transformation also changed how people reacted to her. After gaining weight, she noticed noticeably different treatment while travelling. She grew up watching actors such as Aamir Khan and Johnny Depp approach physical change as a normal part of the job, but later understood that some people view a changed body type less warmly.
The contract, the warnings and the wait
- She was locked in for 9-10 months and could not sign another project during that window.
- People around her warned her not to give so much time to one film, especially after some earlier transformations were for projects shelved just before filming.
- Sumo Didi premiered at international festivals, including the Tokyo International Film Festival, and earned extra screenings.
The release journey was long, but Bhagnani kept busy with other work, took up a Netflix project and became an angel investor. She said a US podcaster, Theo Von, mentioned the film out of nowhere, and the festival response showed how the film would be received. Even so, the impatience stayed: the team wanted Indian audiences to see it.
Why this matters for Hindi film fans
Sumo Didi brings a rarely seen Indian sport to the screen and centres a woman who fought body-shaming and family resistance. Directed by Jayant Rohatgi, the film also stars Chaitanya Sharma, Anubha Fatehpura, Nitesh Pandey and Raghav Dhir. For viewers, it is a chance to see long, documented preparation rather than post-production trickery.
Source: Hindustan Times