Mass Maharaja Ravi Teja’s Ravanasura is all set to hit the theaters on April 7. Ahead of the film’s release, actress Faria Abdullah speaks to The Pioneer over an exclusive chat about her character, preps for the role, her first love, and more.
Amartya Smaran
Although Merlapaka Gandhi’s Like, Share & Subscribe failed to impress the audience last October, it looks like actress Faria Abdullah didn’t lose her confidence one bit. The actress, who took the Telugu states by storm with her portrayal of Chitti in Anudeep KV’s Jathi Ratnalu is pumped up about the release of Mass Maharaja Ravi Teja’s Ravanasura. The film is slated for its grand release on April 7 and our Chitti will be seen playing lawyer Kanaka Mahalakshmi.
When we say lawyer, we’re sure your mind immediately takes you to Jathi Ratnalu courtroom scenes where Faria delivers a hilarious performance but don’t worry. This time, she is donning the role of a serious senior lawyer (Ravi Teja is a junior lawyer, by the way). At least, that’s what she says. She even revealed that she has a separate love track with mass hero Ravi Teja, who’s relishing the success of two back to back 100 crore blockbusters. The song, Pyaar Lona Paagal is a proof that the audience would get to see some great chemistry between the duo.
Wait! How could Ravi Teja be a junior when Faria is a senior lawyer? Aren’t you also thinking the same? Well! Faria cleared it for us, “Logically, there’s a thing to it . Of course, age-wise, it’s not being shown as I’m older to him. He’s just playing my junior lawyer, but because of the chemistry that the two characters have it kind of excited me. I knew I could play around with something like this. So, I went for it.”
The actress informed us that the character didn’t demand any kind of serious preparation where she had to meet lawyers and take notes in order to ace the character. However, to add that extra oomph to the character, she says she tried something different with her hair.
“Scenes in court were very few, but that’s her background,” said the Jathi Ratnalu star. “There was nothing significant to prepare to play the character of a lawyer. She’s a married woman and there’s got to be some maturity in her body language. I had to create a separate mindset to play the character. I wanted to play this character differently, so I straightened my curls this time. You won’t see my usual curly hair. I hope people will like it.”
Speaking of her journey, she remarked, “It’s just begun. So, there’s not a lot to look at but I know the growth has been very rapid. And I’m excited to see what’s more to come. There’s a lot that’s been learned and I’m putting that to use as well.”
Her career skyrocketed post the unexpected success of Jathi Ratnalu and sort of made her an overnight star. A career that several lakhs of aspiring young actors would like to have, but struggle to get the same kind of a break that the actress got. “I took my time around it to get used to it,” shared the professional dancer talking about how she took to fame. “To kind of understand that this is going to be life now. Even now, sometimes I get slightly shaken with all the public attention and kind of crave privacy sometimes. However, I understand that life is like this as an actor/public figure. Every day, it’s a new learning, but every day there’s also thoughts as to how I can do better. I think that’s the part that I want to focus on.”
Dance! Is the charming actress’ first love. Take a look at her instagram profile and you’ll find numerous videos where she’s trying to perfect each and every step. We asked her if it’s something that she does to preserve her inner child and she replied, “Definitely! It keeps all parts of me alive. It is because of dance that I’m able to do all the things that normal human beings are required to do. It’s such a core part of my life that there’s no way I can ever let it go or think of not doing it. I think it helps me a lot in acting and focusing. Also, even fitness wise, dance is a good support.”
In our last interaction right ahead of the release of Like, Share & Subscribe, she said she’d love to direct a film and she’s extremely influenced by artsy films. So, who are her influences and what kind of films would she like to make? “Because dance is such an essential part of my life, a musical is something that I would like to direct or something that has dance as a strong element. At least for the first film. I’m inspired by a lot of world cinema; French cinema. For example, there’s La La Land, In the Heights, Climax, and Elvis. All of these films have great editing and a different kind of narrative style. Gaspar Noé, the director of climax. He’s a really cool guy. Of course, Christopher Nolan! The way he kind of tells his stories.”
“I think I’m grateful that the next day after Like, Share & Subscribe was released, I jumped into shooting for another project,” said Faria in response to the film’s failure at the box-office. “I kind of detached myself from the process of output. And, I think that’s a smart thing to do because not every time you can be responsible for the output. No matter how much you try.”
Ravanasura is produced by Abhishek Nama and Ravi Teja under the banners of Abhishek Pictures and RT Teamworks respectively. The film is directed by Sudheer Varma, who’s best known for Swamy Ra Ra and recently he directed a picture called Saakini Daakini which didn’t do as expected at the box-office. The action thriller also stars Sushanth, Srikanth, Jayaram, Anu Emmanuel, Megha Akash, Daksha Nagarkar, and Pujitha Ponnada. While Srikanth Vissa penned the story, Vijay Kartik Kannan shot the film. The music is composed by Harshavardhan Rameswar and Bheems Ceciroleo.
