Youngster on the rise

Ever since Pellichoopulu hit the screens, his phone has not stopped ringing, though he was away in Italy shooting for ‘Arjun Reddy’.
But Vijay Deverakonda, the man of the moment, remains unaffected by the accolades coming his way; nothing has changed him inside out.

I’m like, ‘Ok, one film is done, what’s next?’ I’m completely empty inside. I’m relieved more than happy,” muses the actor who returned to Hyderabad on Friday night.

For actors like me, devoid of a godfather, opportunities don’t come easily and if indeed ‘one’ comes our way, we have to draw people’s attention with our performance. Maybe that’s why I’m more relieved than happy.”

After a pause, he continues, “I’m at loss for words to thank the people who have complimented my work. All I can say at this point in time is a big thank you.”

He says that he was not on director Tharun Bhascker’s mind initially for ‘#Pellichoopulu’.“I was in Visakhapatnam when Tharun, after watching Yevade Subramanyam,’ rang me up and said, ‘I underestimated you as an actor.

You completely blew me away with your performance. I would like to work with you.’ He later met me in Hyderabad and spoke about some producers showing interest in his script. He called me subsequently and said, ‘Let’s make this film together’,” he recalls.

A romantic comedy, the film features Vijay as a lazy guy Prashanth who aspires to become a chef but his dad, upon on the advice of family astrologer, arranges pellichoopulu for him, assuming that his stars would change once he gets married. Vijay shares that he had no prep-up for the part.

The character is real. When Tharun was narrating me it, I used to get ideas of what I need to do with the role. I was like, ‘For this scene, I need to yawn.’ I was keen to give life to those ideas. And after the narration, we spent a couple of months exchanging ideas and enhancing the script.

We used to play cricket, hang out in a bar to discuss the script and my character. The practise helped me to know the character inside out,” he reflects, pointing out that shooting in live sound was another reason that made him board the project.

It was a blessing. I believe that you can’t replicate what you do on sets in a dubbing studio. When Tharun broached the idea of sync sound, it got me more excited.”

But did he at least polish his cookery skills to justify the portions where he is seen cooking?“I couldn’t cut an onion before the start of the shoot. Naa valla kaani pani.

I told the unit that we should use a double but they said ‘we will see.’ But as time passed by, they gave me the knife to hold,” he grins, admitting that the day which required him to cut vegetables, was horrible.

I felt terrible. On the second day, they somehow managed to hire a cook from a nearby fast food centre. He demonstrated on how to go about slicing onions. It was better.

Up next, besides ‘Arjun Reddy’, Vijay has ‘Dwaraka’ with SuperGood Films. He will also be shooting for Vyjayanti Movies’ new venture from October.