Udta Teer used AI to add Mukul Dev’s Operation Sindoor dialogue

When Udta Teer reaches screens, viewers will see its characters move through an Operation Sindoor sequence — the real-world military action dated May 7, 2025. The twist is that the film was largely shot in 2024, and Mukul Dev, who plays a key role, died on May 23, 2025. In a new interview, writer-director Aakash A Kaushik has explained how the late actor still delivers a fresh line about that operation: the production used AI to recreate his voice.

A new dialogue, added after the actor was gone

Kaushik told Bollywood Hungama that the original plan had been to show something else. Once Operation Sindoor happened, the team decided to rework Mukul Dev’s dialogue so his character could reference the actual event. By then, the actor was no longer around to record it.

Asked directly whether AI was used to recreate the late actor’s voice, the director confirmed, “Yes, we did.”

• Udta Teer was largely filmed in 2024, months before Operation Sindoor
• Operation Sindoor took place on May 7, 2025
• Mukul Dev died on May 23, 2025, at the age of 54
• The film now opens with an Operation Sindoor sequence

The voice notes he still plays

The director’s memories of Mukul Dev are warm. He says the actor rarely typed messages and would send WhatsApp voice notes instead. “I still have those voice notes and listen to them,” Kaushik said. In one, the late actor tells him, “Iss picture ke baad, mujhe poore India se pyaar milega.”

Kaushik remembers replying that the writing was good, but the performance was even better. He had promised Mukul Dev the role would bring him love across India — and he says that love has now arrived.

There were also midnight calls. Kaushik would answer at 12:30 am, ask if everything was okay, and hear only laughter on the other end: the actor had remembered a scene and could not stop laughing.

Why it matters

AI voice recreation is moving from experiment to on-screen reality in Hindi cinema. Udta Teer now carries a compact example: a line written after a real-world event, spoken by an actor who had already passed away. For fans, it lands as a tribute and a way of keeping a late performer present. For the industry, it sharpens the question of when synthetic voices should be used, and with whose blessing.

Kaushik says he did not know Mukul Dev had been hospitalised in the week before his death, and the news left him unable to work for several days. The AI decision, in his telling, was the team’s way of completing what they had started with the actor — and of keeping their promise that the role would be loved.

Source: bollywoodHungama.com

■

#Aakash A Kaushik#AI voice recreation#Ayushmann Khurrana#Bollywood#Mukul Dev#Operation Sindoor#Udta Teer