Actor Sushanth has been on the move to promote his new Telugu film Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu (also promoted as No Parking ), which will release in theatres on August 27. There hasn’t been time for a lunch break, but he settles down for a quick interview. “The promotions seem hectic than ever, because we have shorter windows to plan a film release,” he says. Theatres in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh re-opened nearly a month ago after the second wave of COVID-19, and a slew of films have begun arriving in theatres.
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Sushanth isn’t complaining. He is glad the producers opted for a theatrical release, even though there were offers for direct digital streaming: “This is the story of a guy who dreams of buying a new bike. He parks his bike in a no parking zone and subsequent events take a chaotic turn. The story and the overall sound design of the film, I think, will be appreciated better in theatres,” he reasons.
- The Vennela Kishore factor: The comic segments involving Sushanth and Kishore were appreciated in Chi la Sow . The rapport between the two actors goes back to Current (2009) and Sushanth mentions there has been an easy camaraderie on sets. “It took quite an effort to match our dates for IVNR . Schedules went haywire due to lockdown.”
- Naga Chaitanya’s gift: Sushanth isn’t a bike aficionado like his cousin actor Naga Chaitanya, and recalls occasionally riding the Hyderabad streets at night, always wearing a helmet: “Chaitanya had gifted me a bike and I used to ride. It was fun.”
Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu (IVNR) was officially launched in February 2020, days after the release of Ala Vaikunthapurramulo . Sushanth had agreed to be a part of debut director Darshan’s IVNR even before the release of his breakthrough film Chi La Sow (2018).
“Darshan wrote the story based on true events that happened to one of his friends in Chennai. In the film, Priyadarshi and [Vennela] Kishore portray the friend characters. Darshan dramatised the incidents for IVNR ,” Sushanth explains.
Chi La Sow had put Sushanth in the reckoning and one would have expected him to follow it up with a solo hero project. IVNR’s script and pre-production took time,and meanwhile, actor Allu Arjun and director Trivikram Srinivas offered him a role in the star-studded Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo . It was too big a project to let go of, and Sushanth took it up, hoping that the visibility he gets through it will help IVNR .
Sushanth and Meenakshi Chaudhary in the film
Expectedly, the massive success of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo fetched him further recognition: “I knew I had a safety net, since I had already taken up IVNR as a solo hero project. After the release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo , a lot of people told me they liked my work. I am glad I got noticed among the huge star cast. The film’s success fetched me commercials and recently I got a call for a Hindi web series. Though the discussions haven’t progressed further, it’s good to know that people remember me from Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo . This is a great time for actors and technicians. Baahubali’s pan-Indian success and the digital focus during the pandemic has blurred regional and language boundaries.”
Reverting to talk about IVNR , which stars Meenakshi Chaudhary as the female lead and Abhinav Gomatam in a crucial role, Sushanth remembers Darshan being particular about the model and colour of the bike his character had to ride in the film: “He wanted a red Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350 and said this bike holds an aspirational value among college students and young professionals.”
Sushanth notices the uncanny similarities in how he happened to work with Darshan for IVNR and Rahul Ravindran for Chi La Sow , both debut directors: “Incidentally, both of them came to me with different stories and I asked them what else they had been working on. The second story they narrated was what I chose to work on. Darshan initially narrated a dark story. I liked the bike story better and since he had already narrated it to producer Niranjan Reddy, we took permission to work on that project. Both Rahul and Darshan are good narrators and I was confident the films would shape up well. They worked with bound scripts, which helped us finish filming at a good pace. Another common aspect in the two films is the presence of cinematographer Sukumar. He doesn’t take up projects unless he likes the script. He was happy with both Chi la Sow and IVNR .”
If Chi La Sow has a couple meeting one evening and a set of events unfolding through the night till the next morning, the second half of IVNR unfolds on the single day: “But the incidents in IVNR are more intense,” says Sushanth.
Post IVNR , Sushanth is considering a Tamil-Telugu bilingual: “People tell me that I need to do films at a quicker pace, but I want to take time and choose stories where I don’t get typecast.”
