Hyderabad: While in most Telugu films, Hindi actors play villains, here is a Telugu actor Surya, who plays a killer in the recently released Anukshanam directed by Ram Gopal Varma. This is Surya’s first film as an actor and he has been appreciated for his performance. “It’s a great experience and honour to work with such a maverick director,” says Surya.
Surya who has spent a lot of years in Nagpur, Maharashtra originally hails from Guntur. “Yes, my father is from Guntur district and my mother is from Nizamabad. I am a complete Telugu guy,” says Surya. His parents settled in Nagpur for business, so Surya completed his education there. Since childhood, he had a passion for cinema, and decided that he would join films after graduation. “I joined a film school in Mumbai and I have done theatre in Mumbai,” says Surya.
He also worked in an insurance company, but left the job after two years for a career in films. “Even my parents didn’t know that I had left my job. Once I got RGV’s film, I informed my parents,” says Surya. A writer who works with RGV told Surya that the director was looking for fresh talent. “I took a selfie video and sent it to Varma late one night. Surprisingly, I got a call in the morning and by evening I was in front of the director,” says Surya. Next day, the director confirmed that he was playing a killer in his film.
“The initial couple of days, I was a bit scared. I thought that the director would explain the scene and tell me how to enact it. But Varma is very different. He showed me a documentary made on a few killers and told me stories. Then he asked me to show how he should act for a scene,” says Surya. He added that, “It gives confidence to any actor, when the director asks to be shown how to act.”
Surya found himself so absorbed in the role during the shooting, that sometimes he had weird thoughts, “One day after the shot, I found myself looking at somebody passing by in front of me, and I suddenly started thinking about kidnapping that person! It takes time to become normal,” says Surya.
Surya is all praises for RGV and says that he gives full freedom to the actors and takes their advice and respects them. “I suggested that I wear spectacles for my character and he agreed,” says Surya.
RGV never bothers the actors about the camera, lights, etc., “He asks us to just enact our scene and not bother about the technicalities,” says Surya.
He has already started work on his second film. “It’s a thriller and I am playing the lead,” he says. Sai Kiran is directing it. “I don’t want to be typecast as a killer, I want to try different roles,” he says. He adds that he is trying Hindi too. “I know Marathi as well, I will try there also,” he says.
