Vijay Deverakonda: ‘Liger has been the hardest & most challenging film for me physically, mentally & performance wise’

Vijay Deverakonda catapulted towards stardom with the portrayal of ‘grey’ and ‘flawed’ character in the massive hit Arjun Reddy, a Tollywood film about a non-conformist, brilliant surgeon with anger management issues. The film hit the screens in 2017 and life has no longer been the same since then for the actor who continued the hit spree with Mahanati, Taxiwaala, and Geetha Govindam. Deverakonda is now gearing up to make a big Bollywood splash with much anticipated action-packed masala entertainer Liger — Puri Jagannadh‘s maiden Pan-India project in which the actor stars as the titular MMA fighter and an underdog with speech defect alongside Ananya Panday, Ronit Roy and Ramya Krishnan in pivotal roles while American boxer Mike Tyson plays an extended cameo. A rebel onscreen and off it, Deverakonda, who has now got used to attention, never hesitates to call spade a spade albeit he very well knows that fame robs you off your forthrightness and honesty. Excerpts from a chat with the rising star and current national obsession —

The kind of response and reception you are getting from people all over the country does that give you that feeling of acceptance?

When we were starting the promotions I came with the mindset of introducing myself. I knew I had to visit different cities but I was very intimidated. I began by thinking that I will introduce myself and I know that I have made a terrific film; I will talk about the film and hopefully ask them to watch it. But as soon as I entered a mall in Mumbai, people were screaming – ‘Vijay, Vijay…’ And when I went to Patna, Ahmedabad and a few other cities it was the same scenario, so suddenly my whole plan of promotions turned confusing because now I wondered what to talk to them, they already know me. I had to come up with something else, so I decided to just chill with people and have fun with them. I decided to stop making it a promotion and just enjoy the love and affection that was coming my way. I don’t know why this is happening exactly, I haven’t grasped it completely yet but I feel the love and I feel I need to give them great cinema in return. The only difficult part of promotions is taking flights, sitting two hours in the plane is very uncomfortable. The journey is difficult but otherwise, I really enjoy visiting different cities and meeting and talking to people, eating local food …I don’t find it tiring at all.

You seem to be really confident about the film, what excited you about Liger?

Yes, I am very confident about the film. When I heard the script I was super excited by the script and I moved everything else, all my other scripts aside because I realised this is the film I want to do next. I knew two things – one, I wanted to look a particular way, and I wanted to transform physically in a particular way. I knew that I wanted to grow my hair. I visualised the character in my head. But one thing I didn’t know was how am I going to do this stammer, stammer is the most interesting part of the film. We figured it out along the way. After a long time I have been extremely excited every day on set shooting and now promoting.

But I had never planned on entering Bollywood, Liger happened organically. And it made sense to make a pan-India movie because it was a story that I feel the country will enjoy watching. I felt ready for it hence we scaled it up. Everyone was on board and we set it up that way. But it was not an intentional plan to enter Bollywood.

You have said that your social life suffered while training for the film, can you please elaborate?

Yes, it is a lot of effort, hard work and discipline. Your social life becomes a little non-existent because you can’t go out, eat and since two years I haven’t touched alcohol, sugar… You have to dedicatedly workout, this has been the hardest and most challenging film for me physically, mentally and performance-wise. It took me one-and-a-half years of constant training to get into shape. I would be in pain every day because there was no time to rest and recover. I always wanted to get better. I had to be in shape for 40 to 50 days and that was really challenging.

Unlike your many contemporaries in the South, you are one of those rare superstars who don’t belong to a film family. How did you make the breakthrough? What was the struggle like?

It is not easy. It is very difficult to find a platform where your voice is heard and you can be seen as an actor. Earlier I used to think my success is all my doing, I never believed in luck or god. But recently I have begun to feel that there is some power, somebody watching over me because some of these things cannot be one person’s doing. I started with theatre and I felt that when I announce that I want to become an actor all the producers will line up but then I realised you cannot get the attention of anybody. There is nowhere to go, who do I talk to? Then somebody spotted me from my play and I did a small role in a film which led to secondary roles, second leads. People wanted me only for supporting roles and I felt I was meant for something big, so I waited and soon after along with my friends made a film called Pelli Choopulu (2016) on a shoe-string budget of Rs 60 lakh, we had raised money from two investors. It was my first solo lead but it was a struggle to release the film. It opened small but went on to make Rs 25 to 30 crores. It also won a National award and that launched me. This was followed by Arjun Reddy in 2017 and since then I have never been out of work. I got about Rs one lakh when Pelli Choopulu became a hit and I didn’t know what to do with so much money (Laughs). I thought even if I do two films in a year my life was set, that was my goal then. But then I wanted to push further. Then Arjun Reddy and Geetha Govindam became bigger hits and these things were not under my control. I was just working because I liked these ideas. I just wanted to push my limit and see where it could reach me.

As we can see in the last many months South films have outperformed Bollywood films at the box office. Everybody wants the kind of success that RRR, or Pushpa, or KGF has seen. Somebody from that industry, how do you look at this debate that Bollywood is not doing well and it needs to learn from the South? Do you think things have shifted and the South is making the kind of cinema that the Indian cinema needs to move towards?

Any debate is good because we need something to keep ourselves busy and write about and talk about. We can debate but in the current times our country is enjoying a particular kind of cinema and it so happens that South of India is making more of such cinema that the audience is easily able to absorb. But it is a cycle, people will get tired of it someday and something else will come. Nothing is permanent. I don’t think it is about Bollywood or Tollywood more than that it is about people who are watching films. In fact, it would be more interesting to study and find out what they are watching in Bihar, UP, Maharashtra and try to understand why they are watching a particular kind of cinema and maybe give them that. But if you give them too much of the same thing they will be bored of that also. It is good to have a balance. Also, there has been an environmental change, a lot of change in viewing habits with OTT coming into our lives. You have so much content out there, with social media and short format videos coming your attention span has become low, you are entertained by something new every five minutes. All these things alter your reaction to entertainment. These are the factors we are all trying to understand how these are changing the dynamics of entertainment and cinema.

But why this conversation about South films working is happening is because if you look at the overall picture, out of about 200 films that released in the last few months, the biggest box office numbers have come from Pushpa, RRR, KGF, whereas Hindi films have not given that kind of numbers. But let me also add that even in the South a lot of films haven’t worked but some of the films that we are talking about have been huge grossers. But once Brahmastra comes, then other films like Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan would hopefully work.

You come across as a very vocal person who doesn’t shy away from voicing opinions but now with the canvas increasing with each passing day and with tremendous success and fame has it become tough for you to hold on to your individuality as an actor and as a person?

Can I hold on to myself and my individuality? Yes, nothing will change that. I am vocal, yes, but maybe the more popular you get you decide not to speak your mind always. It is like people don’t need to know what I am thinking, my opinion on everything doesn’t matter because already there are lakhs of opinions on every topic and now if I add one more, what is the point? Maybe earlier I would speak a lot on everything that I felt about but now I have learnt that sometimes you don’t need to vocalize everything that you feel. You need to shut up and you can talk to your friends about what you feel. But it doesn’t change who I am, I still feel the same way, I am the same person at the core. Vijay Deverakonda is still the same boy when he was not an actor.

How do you react to the gossip press and all these speculations about your personal life that who is Vijay Deverakonda dating, is he in a relationship with Sara Ali Khan, or Ananya Panday, or is he going steady with Rashmika Mandanna …Does all this bother you that this might take away from your professional achievements?

I am okay with it. It is just a collateral damage of being a public figure. When people love you and want to know more about you they are interested in your life and if there are news articles coming I am okay. I would rather be somebody and have these rumours written about me than be a nobody and have nothing written about me.

Will you be collaborating with Hindi film directors?

For sure but no one has approached me yet. Whoever wants to work with me I am open to that.

You had once said that you want your films to be away from politics, and review proof?

Yes, that is true. When my film Dear Comrade released there was a lot of politicking, there were people who didn’t want the film to do well. There was a press that was paid to write bad stuff about the film. I was not prepared for this at all. I was a boy who wanted to be an actor and suddenly I realized there is a whole dynamic out of my control in the film industry and I wanted to remove all these external things that are influencing people. I decided to not be vulnerable to people who don’t want to see me doing well. I love cinema and somebody was trying to prevent me from doing it which really bothered me. I decided that I will do cinema and try to build direct communication with my audience. I didn’t want anyone else in between, if I do a film and tell you it is good, you come and watch and enjoy it. I decided to pick only those films that I 100 per cent know will work …maybe I am na?ve to believe this. But I have decided to work only with those people who can ensure the same vision and I want to pick scripts that I really like.

How was it working with Mike Tyson?

It was amazing!! There are three to four superstars who are recognized world over for instance Michael Jackson, Jackie Chan, then maybe Bruce Lee, and Mike Tyson. We got to work with Mike… talk, laugh, and eat with him. He is scary and sweet at the same time. He would come before time and do exactly what he is told. When you are explaining a scene to him, he wouldn’t acknowledge and you wonder if he was actually listening and getting it right but as soon as the director said ‘Action’, he would do exactly as discussed though I used to get worried during the fight scene if he punched me hard (laughs) just in case he had missed out listening to the instructions. He is really sharp.

Lastly, who is your most favourite actor from the Hindi film industry?

I have always liked Ranbir Kapoor.

Liger, directed by Puri Jagannadh and backed by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions’ releases on 25 August in five languages — Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.

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