'History should spark curiosity': Nikkhil Advani talks 'Freedom at Midnight' and its storytelling choices

As Freedom at Midnight returns for its second season, expectations are already high. For director Nikkhil Advani, however, it was all carefully planned. From the very beginning, Freedom at Midnight was conceived as a two-season narrative.

"We knew that we were going to make both the seasons together," he explains, drawing parallels with Rocket Boys, which followed a similar production model. Period dramas, Advani points out, demand this kind of foresight. Locations, sets, and historical spaces often recur across episodes, sometimes many hours apart in the narrative. "You can’t keep going back to those kinds of locations and keep building those sets again."

What surprised even the creators was how the second season grew in strength on the page. "It became a big responsibility for us as the directing team and the cinematography team and the sound and editing to live up to what was already there on paper."

Working with real events and towering historical figures inevitably raises questions about accuracy versus interpretation. Advani was clear that absolute factuality would defeat the purpose of dramatic storytelling. "If it was strictly factual, it would become like a documentary. It would become pretty dry."

The aim, instead, was accessibility, drawing in viewers who might otherwise avoid history-led narratives. While the show allows creative interpretation, it adheres to firm internal rules. "The log line of the show was the sacrifice of many and the ambition of one," Advani says. "Every scene, every moment, every beat… had to satisfy the sacrifice of many, ambition of one."

Another guiding principle was curiosity. With the tagline "the history you may not know, the history you should know," the show actively invites audiences to question and research what they are watching. "A lot of people watching should actually immediately stop watching and go to Google and check, 'Hey, did this really…?' That leads to conversation."

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Perhaps most crucially, the show was designed as an immersive experience. "To take the audience who’s watching the show and transport them into those rooms… put them in the middle of the riots, put them in the middle of the violence." Advani approached the series like a thriller, driven by a relentless ticking clock. "One event after the other… they’ve solved this, this happens… it was relentless."

One of the most striking aspects of Freedom at Midnight

is its portrayal of political icons not as distant textbook figures, but as deeply human beings. Asked about scenes that stayed with him, Advani doesn’t hesitate.

"My favourite two scenes are… in the penultimate episode where Nehru and Sardar Patel go head to head with each other." The scene demanded careful balance, between performance, dialogue, and public perception. "Lots of people are in the Nehru camp. Lots of people are in the Patel camp. Are we justifying these two great titans who are going at each other?"

He also points to a moment many viewers may not know is rooted in history: "Lots of people did not know that Sardar Patel’s resignation was on Gandhi’s desk when he actually went out on January 30th."

But it is the assassination aftermath that left the deepest impact on Advani himself. Recalling the shoot, he describes a near-spiritual silence on set. "Chirag, who plays Gandhi, he laid down on the arthi and the room just went quiet… a room of 70–80 people just became quiet." Despite knowing it was a performance, the weight of the moment was overwhelming. "There are some scenes that surpass what is there inside a director’s head… that scene just blew me away."

Looking forward, Advani has a packed slate. The Revolutionaries, an Amazon series based on a book by Sanjeev Sanyal, is slated for release later this year. Beyond that, his production house has multiple projects lined up. “This year will be about five to six things that will come out. It’s going to be a busy year."

As for returning to feature films, the answer is no longer tentative. "I’m definitely going to do a film again," he says. Whether it fits traditional definitions of 'mainstream' is another matter. "Mainstream changes every day. I don’t know what is mainstream anymore."

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