Naga Chaitanya’s Custody is nearing its release, and ahead of the it, the ‘Yuva Samrat’ interacts with the Hyderabadi media, and discusses the preps he had done for the action sequences, and more.
Amartya Smaran
Actor Naga Chaitanya never lost his footing amid the tainting news items written about his personal life, and minor hiccups at the box-office . The star’s desire to be a part of unique stories is appreciable. Sekhar Kammula’s Love Story presented him as a man with middle class aspirations. Venkat Prabhu’s Custody, which released today, is no different. However, the stakes are high.
The Custody actor will be seen playing Shiva, a constable who finds himself in an unfathomable mess. The film stars Naga Chaitanya, Krithi Shetty, Priyamani, Arvind Swamy, and R. SarathKumar in crucial roles. Basically, he plays an underdog in the film. Who doesn’t love underdog stories? In fact, Naga Chaitanya’s father—Nagarjuna—gained a cult following with RGV’s Shiva (1990), which is one of the most popular underdog character driven films.
The film’s director, Venkat Prabhu, had apparently suggested they go with the title—Shiva—but Naga Chaitanya was not okay with it because Akkineni fans would draw comparisons. Custody is also the actor’s first bi-lingual(Telugu and Tamil) film, and a costly one too. Over the years, with films like Ye Maaya Chesave, 100% Love, Manam, Premam, Saahasam Swasaga Saagipo, and Love Story, Chay built an image for himself as a romantic hero. He didn’t quite have that ‘mass-image’. He always managed to bring in a level of sophistication to the films that he associated himself with.
When Venkat Prabhu narrated the story to the 100% Love actor, he was fixated that he’d present Chay in a different manner. And the filmmaker is known for creating characters that redefine the image of star heroes. In a recent press meeting held on Thursday, The Pioneer asked the actor whether he’d perceive himself differently as a star hero after the release of Custody.
“The audience has to tell me,”chuckled Chay. “I watched the film and I’m very happy with the output. No matter what we predict, it’s the audience that shapes our image and gives the final verdict. Whatever said and done, every film has to be different from the other. Just because Custody is going to be a hit, I won’t follow the same format. Definitely, the characterisation in my next film would be completely different.”
Chay, who’s a fan of the Bourne Trilogy and James Bond franchise, is an actor who prefers doing realistic action sequences. We inquired about the kind of preparation that went into making these action sequences (stunts by Mahesh Mathew) come to life.
“A lot of discussions and rehearsal!” enthused the actor. “We tried to keep it as real as possible. I love films with high speed shots, people flying in the air, and cars blowing up, but those films deserve that.”
The Love Story actor further went on to say that Custody doesn’t deserve space for such over-the-top action sequences. “Custody doesn’t deserve that at all. If I do that, it’s just going to be silly. You guys would criticise me for it. Custody deserves realistic action, and we stuck to that template. Even if you see the teaser, and the trailer, we purposely didn’t put commercial elements for the sake of it. We just stuck to the story because that is going to be the mood of the film. Today, the audience will see through any kind of a gimmick, and we didn’t want that.”
Irrespective of the films he acts in, the Venky Mama star has a habit of seriously partaking in workshops for two to three months. He says that workshops make everyone’s job easy on the sets. Rehearsing during workshops might boost the confidence of the actors, but they would still have to face a lot of minor/major stumbling blocks on the shooting spot.
For Chay, the action sequences proved to be quite strenuous.
“We can’t prepare for action, because it’s huge. We shot underwater, in a tunnel, and we even shot in a dam. These are the things we can’t rehearse until we get to the live location. While shooting the action sequences, we had a lot of hiccups here and there, but it’s part and parcel of the game. Physically, it was definitely a struggle,” signed off the Custody star.
