Meeku Mathrame Cheptha is Hyderabadi actor Abhinav Gomatam’s tenth film and he is doing aggressive promotions for this project, which he’s not done before. Whether it has got to do with Vijay Deverakonda being the producer or Tarun Bhaskar being his co-star, one doesn’t know but he is thoroughly enjoying himself and is comfortable sharing his thoughts.
Abhinav has had a middle class upbringing and had a faint idea that he would choose acting as a career. “Movies is something that I would go and see and didn’t know that would be the choice in my life till I finished the third year in engineering. Once I did a mime show for a college fest, my senior summoned me and I had to oblige. We won the second prize, and even then I didn’t know I would get into films but one thing I was sure of was that I would never fit into the regular 9 to 5 job. I am not going to clock in and clock out and need to be out in the field. But in the middle class families, doing something and making money is a big deal and so like others I took up a job,” he recalls, but admits he used to get restless and could sense something missing and the desire to do something creative..
He wanted to prove himself as an actor before approaching anyone for acting assignments and began scouting for theatre groups he could work with. He had opportunities to work on stage, which included one with Mahesh Dattani’s Clock Work Productions. “Getting into theatre is practical learning. For the first couple of times, I had butterflies in my stomach. I might have rehearsed for months but it is still not a familiar feeling when you are going on stage. Five minutes before the show, I would peek from the curtain and see if I knew any faces. Most times I would call my parents, look at them, take a deep breath and would carry on with my work. I have been on stage for over 50 times now and doing each play umpteen times,” he says. Abhinav remembers mimicking actors for the first couple of plays, but when people commented he was copying, he worked on it. Today his roles are very diverse, what he had done in Malli Rava is very different from Ee Nagaraniki Yemaindi .
If an actor’s last film is successful, he or she is offered similar roles in the next project. One has to consciously avoid it in order to break the image and Abhinav learnt the rules of the game very early. He will not take up anything that will not excite or challenge him and he definitely doesn’t want to do something funny over and over again and be termed as a comedian. Not that he finds it offensive, he just doesn’t want to be branded and confined to a certain genre. So, very early on he did a film called Jessie which showed a different angle in him. He shares, “I can play any character. If Jessie is a horror film, next is a negative lead role in Sushant Akkineni’s film. Thankfully some of my friends are supporting me in that endeavour. I am doing a web series too which is the next instalment of Ee Nagaraniki Yemaindi . There is another political drama in which I play a conniving, ambitious young man. Also on the anvil is a friend’s role in Venkat Atluri’s film starring Nithiin.”
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