A V Subrahmanyam (more popular as AVS) had returned to acting full time five years ago, but with all the media coverage of his health condition then, even now people keep asking him whether he is well and if he is able to work. All he has to sayis, he is fine and busy working.
AVS is currently doing 15 films, a mixture of big and small budget projects. He stresses that each one of them have been signed only because he liked his role and not because he wanted to be busy throughout the year. He avers, “There is lot of comfort working in small budget films because they wind up fast, are non-fussy, dates aren’t wasted and they value our presence and time. Big films are not in our control. This year 2012 has been good, I worked in and signed some nice projects. Dhenikaina Ready, Welcome, a Janardhana Maharshi film, Yamudiki Mogudu etc. I love to keep myself busy personally and professionally, if I have no work I slip into depression. But that doesn’t mean I will sign any film that comes my way. If there is no movie, I create work and get involved in it.”
So what does he do to stay busy? “I wanted the journalist in me to be alive, so I came up with a blog and am running a movie based website with the help of a friend, called Telugumirchi.com.”
In Dhenikaina Ready, the comedian plays a hilarious role of a purohit who assigns a job of conducting a ritual to his son in his absence and on his return finds that someone else has impersonated his son. As for the controversy that the film targets a community? AVS retorts, “Nageswara Reddy is a talented director and I’m sure he will be talked about for the success of this film. I believe that no one else in this industry is capable of creating a co+ntroversy to get publicity for his film other than Ramgopal Verma. People will watch a film only if it has certain stuff. By adopting such publicity gimmicks, the directors lose their credibility. The directors should concentrate on content and not on controversies. Films like Ee Rojullo, Ala Modhalaindi, Pilla Zamindar all have raked in profits at the box office without publicity. Publicity is useful to a certain level but I don’t believe that films become a hit only because of publicity and controversies.”
He recently anchored the audio function of Dhenikaina Ready after a long time; one saw him on the stage showing his characteristic spontaneous humour. AVS reveals that though he had anchored innumerable such programmes and 100 days functions for films, he now prefers to lie low. He reacts, “I will play host or compere only if I like someone or someone requests me, I should feel like doing it. Earlier it was not the case.”
His son in law Chintu (of Avunu fame) is slowly climbing up the ladder and what more, doing it without dropping names. AVS is happy about that and agrees that Chintu is talented. “I told him that if he proves himself to be a good artiste, he need not worry about roles, he will get projects without asking for it. He has a good role in Pavitra, a film by Janardhana Maharshi and in Paisa, a Krishna Vamsi movie. He is doing an extremely balanced job. Some people keep saying “Na biddalni aaseervadinchandi (bless my children), but the audience have no qualms; they will not bless or encourage people if the film or the performances is not good. Who blessed Nagarjuna or Venkatesh? They came out of the shadow of their parents and proved their mettle.”
