Actor Sushanth holds forth on his new Telugu movie ‘Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu’ and life after ‘Chi La Sow’ and ‘Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo’
Actor Sushanth has been on the transfer to advertise his new Telugu movie Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu (additionally promoted as No Parking), which is able to launch in theatres on August 27. There hasn’t been time for a lunch break, however he settles down for a fast interview. “The promotions seem hectic than ever, because we have shorter windows to plan a film release,” he says. Theatres in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh re-opened almost a month in the past after the second wave of COVID-19, and a slew of movies have begun arriving in theatres.
Sushanth isn’t complaining. He is glad the producers opted for a theatrical launch, although there have been affords for direct digital streaming: “This is the story of a guy who dreams of buying a new bike. He parks his bike in a no parking zone and subsequent events take a chaotic turn. The story and the overall sound design of the film, I think, will be appreciated better in theatres,” he causes.
- The Vennela Kishore issue: The comedian segments involving Sushanth and Kishore had been appreciated in Chi la Sow. The rapport between the 2 actors goes again to Current (2009) and Sushanth mentions there was a straightforward camaraderie on units. “It took quite an effort to match our dates for IVNR. Schedules went haywire due to lockdown.”
- Naga Chaitanya’s present: Sushanth isn’t a motorbike aficionado like his cousin actor Naga Chaitanya, and recollects often using the Hyderabad streets at evening, all the time carrying a helmet: “Chaitanya had gifted me a bike and I used to ride. It was fun.”
Ichata Vahanamulu Nilupa Radu (IVNR) was formally launched in February 2020, days after the discharge of Ala Vaikunthapurramulo. Sushanth had agreed to be part of debut director Darshan’s IVNR even earlier than the discharge of his breakthrough movie Chi La Sow (2018).
“Darshan wrote the story based on true events that happened to one of his friends in Chennai. In the film, Priyadarshi and [Vennela] Kishore portray the friend characters. Darshan dramatised the incidents for IVNR,” Sushanth explains.
Chi La Sow had put Sushanth within the reckoning and one would have anticipated him to comply with it up with a solo hero challenge. IVNR’s script and pre-production took time,and in the meantime, actor Allu Arjun and director Trivikram Srinivas provided him a task within the star-studded Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. It was too large a challenge to let go of, and Sushanth took it up, hoping that the visibility he will get by way of it is going to assist IVNR.
Sushanth and Meenakshi Chaudhary within the movie
Expectedly, the huge success of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo fetched him additional recognition: “I knew I had a safety net, since I had already taken up IVNR as a solo hero project. After the release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, a lot of people told me they liked my work. I am glad I got noticed among the huge star cast. The film’s success fetched me commercials and recently I got a call for a Hindi web series. Though the discussions haven’t progressed further, it’s good to know that people remember me from Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. This is a great time for actors and technicians. Baahubali’s pan-Indian success and the digital focus during the pandemic has blurred regional and language boundaries.”
Reverting to speak about IVNR, which stars Meenakshi Chaudhary as the feminine lead and Abhinav Gomatam in an important position, Sushanth remembers Darshan being specific in regards to the mannequin and color of the bike his character needed to trip within the movie: “He wanted a red Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350 and said this bike holds an aspirational value among college students and young professionals.”
Sushanth notices the uncanny similarities in how he occurred to work with Darshan for IVNR and Rahul Ravindran for Chi La Sow, each debut administrators: “Incidentally, both of them came to me with different stories and I asked them what else they had been working on. The second story they narrated was what I chose to work on. Darshan initially narrated a dark story. I liked the bike story better and since he had already narrated it to producer Niranjan Reddy, we took permission to work on that project. Both Rahul and Darshan are good narrators and I was confident the films would shape up well. They worked with bound scripts, which helped us finish filming at a good pace. Another common aspect in the two films is the presence of cinematographer Sukumar. He doesn’t take up projects unless he likes the script. He was happy with both Chi la Sow and IVNR.”
If Chi La Sow has a pair assembly one night and a set of occasions unfolding by way of the evening until the following morning, the second half of IVNR unfolds on the one day: “But the incidents in IVNR are more intense,” says Sushanth.
Post IVNR, Sushanth is contemplating a Tamil-Telugu bilingual: “People tell me that I need to do films at a quicker pace, but I want to take time and choose stories where I don’t get typecast.”
