R Madhavan admits that Rang De Basanti was exciting for him only for nine minutes

Despite having only nine minutes of screen time, R Madhavan's performance in the 2006 movie Rang De Basanti helped define his career. Viewers were moved to tears as the actor portrayed Flight Lt. Ajay Singh Rathod, who died in a MiG-21 crash due to a malfunction. Madhavan recently discussed the film in a lighthearted conversation with Tanmay Bhat and other people, and they all chuckled when he brought up the role's brief duration.

R Madhavan was questioned if he had seen the second part of Rang De Basanti and if he knew what happened during a conversation with Tanmay Bhat in June. The actor said, "great question. Rang De Basanti was only valid, very exciting for me for nine minutes."

The Rocketry (2022) actor had mentioned in a previous interview that he had spent eight days working on the nine-minute role. He said, “I was supposed to do Siddharth’s role but I couldn’t because I had long hair, and I ended up doing the pilot’s role. Big revelation in my life, because even now when they speak about Rang De Basanti, my name is synonymous with that film, for a nine-minute appearance. And these gentlemen, who worked so hard for one-and-a-half years, and I only worked for eight days, I think.”

Rang De Basanti, directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, was the highest grossing Hindi film of the year and India's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards. The film starred Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni, Kunal Kapoor, Alice Patten, and Soha Ali Khan.