Raj Madiraju explores first love

While Ulka is a hard-working and fabulous performer who puts in great effort to attain perfection, Aakash is a natural who can be spontaneous. They are a perfect combination

Raj Madiraju

“When I first watched Marathi film ‘Timepass’ (Andhra Pori is a remake of the film) I really connected to it. I watched it four times on that day,” recalls Raj, adding, “Through the process of making this film, I must have watched it around 40-50 times.”

Despite the film being the official remake, Raj insists they made several changes. “The original, though a wonderful film, runs at a pace of its own. The way it runs has been changed and we tweaked the script to match the local sensibilities,” he shares.

“Even the fact that the duo come from Telangana and Andhra was an introduction we made to give it a different spin. Not just that, the two are totally different – while Aakash has failed class 10 three times, Ulka is from a family where education is considered very important. There’s a complete gap in their upbringing. Overall, we focused a lot on academics,” he explains.

While Ulka and Aakash have reportedly done a “fabulous job”, the director reveals that they weren’t the first choice for the film. “We didn’t want a familiar face or a celebrity to play the male lead. We were looking for a fresh face as that was the only way the simplicity of the original could be retained. We considered many boys and even looked at Aakash as one of them and felt that he would be able to do a good job.

We met his father Puri Jagannadh and shared our view. His immediate response was that ‘Aakash isn’t the right guy’. We decided that he should audition and then things fell into place later on. “Same is the case with Ulka. We wanted to cast a Telugu girl for the role. But sadly, we couldn’t find a suitable artist and had to finally look elsewhere and we found her,” says Raj.

When quizzed if the film is different, he says nonchalantly, “Not really. It’s something you have seen before but the treatment will definitely be different and every individual will definitely be able to connect to the film because the tender, honest first love is what this story will remind everyone of.”

Interestingly, the film’s pre-production took six-seven months as opposed to the short period of around 30 days in which they completed shoot. “We invested all the time in training and ensuring everything was in place. More rigorous is the pre-production, the easier the shoot becomes,” he opined.

By Pranita Jonnalagedda