That Slipper Shot & Sound, Both Were Real: Pitta Kathalu Actor

Netflix’s first Telugu original Pitta Kathalu is making a huge noise. The anthology is all set for premieres on February 19th. Meanwhile, the team from one of the stories in this anthology ‘Ramula’ had a chill session with Akkineni Naga Chaitanya at a video conference.

Chay watched the stories and is thrilled enough to ask all the curious questions about how it happened, while the team of Manchu Lakshmi, Tharun Bhascker, Abhay Bethaganti (Naveen Kumar), and Saanve spilled out their fun experiences and secrets from behind the scenes. Watch the Gulte.com exclusive video and here is the excerpt of the conversation.

Chay: Tharun, How did it happen? It’ Pelli Choopulu, Ee Nagaraniki, and then this whole genre shift, where did that inspiration come from?

Tharun: No sir, even we have been discussing a couple of things so, I consciously wanted to change the genre, Chay. Because it is starting of my career, I wanted to do as many experiments as possible and to wait and see if we can get better at different things. So for me, my main thing was to just break away from comedy and explore dark humor and also probably something more serious and see where it leads me. Otherwise, I knew I will put myself in a box and say only romcoms or comedy and this thing will really really tire me later, I felt.

So if not OTTs, where else? I thought this was a great platform

Chay: So was it challenging, did you have to write differently for OTT? Is it different from writing for like a big screen?

Tharun: 100 percent, I mean it is very different because, for a two-hour film, we have these formats, right? (Manchu Lakshmi prompts) Interval bang, second half, Pre-climax, and that happens. So when it is suddenly a thirty minutes thing, what can you talk about? These are the conversations that we have when every time we are having coffee or chatting with friends. And we talk about something that happened sometime back. Sometimes those stories were only twenty minutes or thirty minutes or whatever…

Chay: And you feel creatively you have a lot more freedom of expression here?

Tharun: Yeah, I think so, and also I think for me always it has been challenging.

Chay: Lakshmi, you feel it is the same for actors? we can, you know sort of.. experiment and do stuff on OTT, that we can’t do on film?

Manchu Lakshmi: Definitely! I think so, not that especially this script had any of those elements that we could not have done in a regular theatrical film, but, it’s a feeling, I can be whatever, there is no boss, no boundaries.

Tharun: That is one thing I wanted to ask actors also, Chay… What would actors have, as in would you be insecure to come on to a 15-minute thing like YouTube or whatever another platform, how would you guys take a call? Now that you guys are used to be on that large screen, what goes on in your mind?

Chay: I always wanted to try different things. There are so many things in my mind that I want to express but I am always scared on screen because we are so used to this format and there are so many permutations and combinations to it, will it work out or not, but just like how you said, there is so much more creative freedom when you don’t have those rules and that’s what you are doing right now. So. I am definitely curious and I Definitely want to attempt that too. Somewhere we need to start balancing it out.

Chay: How did that Telangana accent go in the beginning? (the team laughs off even before Chay completes his question) I saw you on screen and the look, and the Telangana accent were too good, it blew my mind, How did that work?

Manchu Lakshmi: Oh! Thank you. I think the 100 percent credit goes to Latha for my look because we did two or three test shoots. She wanted me to look older, the sunglasses, the jewelry, and where to put my bindi, I had turmeric here, and every little thing was minutely taken care of. And for the accent, I had Sanjay in my ear, because it was sync sound dude!

I was like, we will see it in dubbing, but was told that this itself is the dubbing!

Chay: So, Saanve, like looking at you now to what I watched yesterday, what a transformation! Awesome, how did this journey happen?

Saanve: Oh it was beautiful I think to me, It’s just the right time, right place, and the right person.

Chay: What match-fixing did you do, Saanve?

Saanve: I was stunned when he called me back. (Tharun: She wasn’t believing it). I believed it on the first day of the shoot that I am in this film.

Tharun (pointing to Abhay and Saanve): She actually beat him, because we, the sound guys were like, we want the sound of the slipper. So Abhay faced it.

Chay: Oh God!

Abhay: She hit me so hard with the slipper and there was resounding. I did not understand what was happening for two minutes. Meanwhile, Sajay was making gestures that it was perfect.

Chay: So Abhay, I heard that Tharun did not cast you initially? Then you only gave an audition?

Abhay: After Pelli Choopulu, I went for Ee Nagaraniki Emaindi, but he said he is going with freshers. Again when he said he is going with freshers for Ramula, I asked him why not case me. I asked him to take an audition first and if I didn’t fit you can go for someone else. He gave me that Bullet bike theater scene for an audition and then he got convinced.

Chay: So Lakshmi, how did you prep? Your character is quite complex. There is a grey shade to it also.. any reference?

Manchu Lakshmi: Oh, of course, there are some evil people out there dude (laughs off). I never really approached Swaroopa Akka as a woman doing this, as somebody who wants to get through in life, and then there are these people coming her way. So for her, it is just men. And really channeling that, and it was so freeing for me because of the subtext, it’s not what I said. It is very few words that I said. But I was brewing inside it was just unbelievable. (Tharun: It came out like that)

Chay: Because the line is very few actually, but actions, the small gestures you do come across so well.

The film just left me thinking about that how he gets caught up in someone else’s agenda, for no fault of ours and how life goes off on a circle from there… I think you handled that very well Tharun. And I am so happy that it is on this platform and it is going to get great exposure, your content people from all over the world are going to watch it and that’s what I am really happy about. Can’t wait for everyone to watch it. You guys are awesome.