Hyderabad, Warangal, Thailand, Mumbai… Rana Daggubati has pretty much been jet-setting the last few days for ad, film and television commitments. Meanwhile, the second part of the NTR biopic, NTR: Mahanayakudu , has been fetching him praises despite the film’s lukewarm box office response. “I am yet to watch the film,” says Rana when we begin to talk, but is happy with the feedback that’s been coming his way.
- Among Rana’s line up of films are Haathi Mere Saathi, a mythological to be directed by Gunasekhar, and a film with director Milind Rau (he directed the Tamil horror-thriller Aval, dubbed as Gruham in Telugu).
- Amar Chitra Katha Learning Centre is in its final stages and poised to be ready later this summer. Expect a cutting-edge centre that takes storytelling into newer avenues.
- A new cohort of start-ups will be announced as part of the Anthill Studio Accelerator Programme.
The film traces NTR’s entry into politics and the upheavals during his first tenure as chief minister in the early 80s, during which young Chandrababu Naidu was a significant pillar of support. Rana terms playing the younger Chandrababu Naidu as both exciting and fun. The first step was to get into the physicality of the part.
He had shed “the big guy image” that he had as Bhallaladeva of Baahubali when he worked on Nene Raju Nene Mantri . He had to get leaner to be Chandrababu Naidu. “He was lean and lanky in his younger days. I lost more weight, and my face started looking leaner. I got rid of my beard and a team from Mumbai worked on my look,” he recalls. In came the thick and curly mop of hair that Naidu sported in his younger days.
Initially, Rana and the film team considered prosthetics but steered away since they didn’t want a “filmi get-up”. “Ultimately people know it’s me in the part. So we ruled out prosthetics,” he reasons.
Workshops with Krish Jagarlamudi followed to get the gait, mannerisms and dialogue delivery of Naidu. Nandamuri Balakrishna arranged for Rana to meet Chandrababu Naidu. “I was playing a real-life character and got to listen from the man about his early years,” Rana recalls. He let that feeling sink in and observed Naidu: “All of us have a different way of speaking the same language. Naidu often says ‘what I am saying is…’ The dialogues were rewritten according to his manner of speaking.” Rana would record his dialogues on the phone and compare it with that of Naidu and improvise. That said, Rana was also aware of the thin line between imbibing the body language and mimicking it. “I didn’t want to make it a caricature. Come to think of it, Naidu is not a great orator. He’s confident, hard working and diligent. That had to reflect in my character.” The fun is in variety, isn’t it? I’ve heard my grandfather (the late Ramanaidu) say that you shouldn’t get paid for doing the same thing over and over.
The meeting with Naidu happened in August 2018 and the shooting followed in September. “Krish shoots at a quick pace, and we went all out,” says Rana. Post the film’s release, Rana hasn’t heard any feedback from Naidu but is glad that he got to be a part of the NTR biopic. “I am a huge NTR fan and beyond that, I don’t know enough about the era, and learnt a lot,” he says.
Every film Rana has been a part of is vastly different in genre. He reasons, “That’s the fun, isn’t it? I’ve heard my grandfather (the late Ramanaidu) say that you shouldn’t get paid for doing the same thing over and over.”
So, after Baahubali, Ghazi, Nene Raju Nene Mantri and the NTR biopic, he’s busy with the multilingual Haathi Mere Saathi , directed by Prabhu Solomon: “Three languages, 15 elephants and four jungles. It’s taking time,” he laughs. In fact, Rana would dub for the biopic at night, from Whistling Woods studio in Mumbai, after shooting through the day for Haathi … There are other projects, films and entrepreneurial, lined up (see infobox). “The audience wants good content and we have more opportunities to deliver that across platforms,” Rana sums up.
