Manish Dayal (“The Hundred-Foot Journey”) is attached to star in the New York-set boxing story, “Uppercut,” penned by Black List writer Neeraj Katyal (“The Amazing Adventures of the Monogamous Duck”).
In the wake of “Hundred-Foot” finding success at the global box-office, Dayal expressed his passion for “the sweet science” to New York-based producer Atit Shah (“A Conspiracy on Jekyll Island”). Longtime friends, Dayal and Shah, subsequently began putting the project together via Shah’s Create Entertainment banner.
Dayal will play Shiva Singhavi, a young boxer raised in the blue-collar, Queens neighborhood of Jackson Heights. As he moves up the ranks of fighters, Singhavi struggles to navigate the gritty underworld of fixed fights, grimy gyms, and dirty cops. Racial tensions escalate following a shooting that Shiva is the sole witness to, and the street-smart athlete soon finds himself caught between a police force that protected him and the community that raised him.
Manish Dayal most recently starred opposite Helen Mirren in DreamWorks’ THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY, directed by Lasse Hallstrom and produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Juliet Blake. Dayal is repped by UTA and Industry Entertainment.
“I’m excited to be a part of this film. ‘Uppercut’ is a story about a world we still haven’t explored on screen. It portrays a resilient, unseen part of New York and a community that is confronted with evolved injustices like NYC’s stop-and-frisk program, racial profiling, and growing, underreported crime — all seen through the eyes of a young man who’s dreams and ambition are at stake” says Manish Dayal on his upcoming role.
