‘My Wife Forced Me To Release FIR In Telugu’

Vishnu Vishal is familiar to Telugu audience as he played an important role in Rana’s Aranya. He is now coming up with FIR which will have simultaneous release in Telugu and Tamil. Manu Anand directed the movie and Ravi Teja presents the Telugu version. The actor interacted with Telugu media today.

How did the movie FIR happen?
Manu Anand was a protégé of Gautam Menon. He at first approached me with an action-packed story. But I asked him to come up with another story. He narrated me the line story of FIR and I was bowled over by the content. He didn’t expect that I would okay such sensitive subject. A friend of mine was to produce the movie. But eventually I became a producer myself.

Why did you choose such sensitive subject?
My father is a police officer who used to transfer regularly. I don’t believe in religion, caste and region. I’m basically a cricketer. Syed Ahmed became close to me because of cricket. The religion never disturbed our friendship. However, few incidents happen in the society bothered me. The script recalled me of few such incidents. Nonetheless, we are not going to hurt the sentiments of any religion. We are coming up with the message that humanity is greater than any religion.

Did the film have any real incidents?
Manu Anand did lots of research for the film. A real-life incident happened to a Muslim boy is shown in the film. These kinds of incidents happen anywhere in the world, on the context of religion. The film didn’t have objectionable scenes to degrade any caste. Censor officials suggested to mute 2 to 3 words, though they didn’t recommend many cuts.

How’s it working with Gautam Menon?
I’m a big fan of Gautam Menon. I like the way he brings best performance out of actors. The way Suriya was presented in Surya S/O Krishnan inspired me a lot. I wanted to do some challenging roles. I worked very hard for the movie Aranya. We got injuries, while shooting for the film. Surya S/O Krishnan is my biggest inspiration. I feel blessed that Gautam sir worked in my film and my production. He is a wonderful actor.

How did Ravi Teja come on board for the movie?
My wife Jwala asked me to release Ratsasan in Telugu. But I had no association in production with the movie. She watched FIR and told me, ‘Since you’re the producer for this movie, you should definitely release it in Telugu’. When I met Ravi Teja, he appreciated my knack of script selection. I expressed my wish of becoming a mass hero. He told me that he wants to do content-based movies like me. He watched rough cut of the movie and liked it. He forecast the movie to turn out to be a sure shot hit. However, he suggested few corrections in the movie. FIR has done highest business in my career. Telugu audience encourage commercial as well as content rich movies.

What’s the meaning of the title FIR?
Audience became more intelligent, after watching movies on different OTT platforms, during corona times. There should be a surprise element to entertain them. They expect title too should be appealing. That’s why we named the movie FIR. However, I can’t reveal the meaning of FIR for now. You will understand it, after watching the movie.

Why did you choose to produce films?
There were several hits in my career, before Ratsasan. However, my market was expanded post Ratsasan. Many projects were okayed after the movie with star directors and leading production banners. However, some of them were called off. I chose to become producer out of anger. However, this movie got delayed due to covid. We at once thought of releasing it on OTT. However, friends suggested me to release the movie in theatres only, after watching it. Thankfully, we got a slot to release the movie in February. We worked day and night to release the movie in Telugu on scheduled date.