Tyson packs a filmi punch

Shooting for the movie, that has Shilpa Shetty as the female lead, was completed early this month.

‘‘I was acquainted to Puneet Issar,’’ says Sawant, a former national boxer (and hence, the nickname). ‘‘And one day, I was at Athena and he mentioned this role in his film.’’

A resident of Girgaum, Sawant also stars in Magic Box, a tele-serial for kids on ZeeTV. ‘‘It’s on air every Sunday morning, but the episodes where I feature are still to come,’’ says this self-conscious man, who represented Maharashtra at the National Games in 1994 and 1997 and also played for Bombay University, where he was an inter-collegiate gold medal winner.

‘‘Boxing has, in a way, got me where I am,’’ he says, and these days he’s giving something back to the sport. ‘‘I coach students of Wilson College and a few other schools for free,’’ he adds.

Sangar is not his first tryst with Bollywood. As a college student at Wilson, Sawant played a bit role in Chamatkaar in 1992, directed by Umesh Mehra.

‘‘It was a very insignificant one; there was this cricket match and I was a fielder,’’ he smiles sheepishly.

While being a bouncer is top priority, Sawant says that movies are an interesting diversion. He could well land a role in David Dhawan’s Mujse Shaadi Karoge, he adds, if all goes well. ‘‘David Dhawan’s assistant director is helping me get a role. But nothing’s fixed yet,’’ says Sawant.