Two big disasters Aaagadu and Bruce Lee threatened to derail his career, but director Sreenu Vaitla remains undaunted. He believes that whatever goes down has to come up again and reveals that he always took hurdles as a lesson and surmounted them to move ahead.
Neverthless, Mister is very crucial to his career. He insists, “I never panicked. When writer Gopi Mohan narrated the story of Mister , I owned it and developed it and narrated it to a star hero. He said okay immediately. Later, after that narration, I felt that if we design a story around that stars image, freshness could be lost. Also people think that I am capable of only garnishing a story with commercial elements. Then I felt Varun Tej would be apt for the film; Gopi concurred. The producers too had wanted me to direct a film with Varun Tej as the hero and we took it forward.”
Sreenu Vaitla enjoyed the journey of Mister . Is the story a predictable one with just a change of a younger hero? He quips, “I directed Anandam, Venky, Dhee etc. The Dhee flavour and formula ruled the industry for a long time. I noticed that monotony and before I could change my style, I was hit by a two huge setbacks. Those who saw the output, especially Gopi Mohan said that it is my best film till date. This film gave me a lot of satisfaction as a director.”
In this triangular love story all the three people have different stories and bringing them together was a tough task. In Mister , there will be no spoofs, there is unique comedy. “ Ithanu yelanti kadhalaina cheyyagaladu..ye kadha lo aina comedy teesukuragaladu (He can do any kind of story, can bring comedy into any story) is what you will hear. Comedy is my forte and people expect it from me, so I took care to offer it in a fresh way,” he remarks.
Speaking of celebrities and their fans getting offended by his spoofs, he says , “We generate comedy from people we move around with. Since I have not been moving among common people for a long time and since I mingle only with filmi people, I draw comedy from their behaviour, look, mannerisms or whatever, just to make sure they look real. I don’t create characters to hurt people.”
Mister is a travel film, a genre he wanted to do for a long time. The director had never travelled so much for a film. He says, “When you go to a particular country, you just shoot in one or two places. We shot in 11 cities in Spain and then Switzerland. After being back in Hyderabad, we went to Chikmagalur and shot in a place where there is mist, at Baba Bundangiri hill during September. We would shoot just two hours every day to catch the mist. It was difficult and not practical. We then shifted to Ooty and Kerala. We didn’t shoot in Hyderabad at all. Nature looks very good in my film.”
