Dasara actor Nani on shooting inside a coal mine, working with SS Rajamouli and more | WION Exclusive 

In an exclusive conversation with WION, Indian superstar Naveen Babu, who goes by the name Nani talks about his upcoming film. At a time, when most films that are produced in the Southern parts of India are breaking records at the box office, Nani remains confident about the success of Dasara. 

A lot of films do that, 'Kantara' did that in a way. I have been travelling across the country for the promotions of Dasara, I went to Jaipur, Nagpur, and Ahmedabad. Each place in India has different characteristics, food, flavour, architecture, and culture. While enjoying myself during the promotions I also realised the importance of hearing stories about the culture and bringing it into the mainstream format. You need to bring in the emotions, and that is the reason films are working. Everything is new, and exciting and remains a discovery. I think cinema can be a great bridge to understanding and celebrating each other.

This film, Dasara was very difficult to shoot because of the coal mines' backdrop. So I actually went there, inside a coal mine, and also there was a set created which was filled with black pots. Even while shooting on the sets it was very difficult, you can feel the dust. Shooting inside the coal mines was literally impossible, but we still did it. You could see the rocks catching fire and the heat was unbearable but we continued. We knew we were getting into a challenging film but we were equally excited about the idea of it. It was difficult for me to get into the character, shoot in those locations, and speak in their slang. There is this rural Telangana slang that is very difficult to catch but the good part was my director, Srikanth Odhela, is from the area. He is from the area where the biggest coal mines are located, the Singareni coal mines, and his father worked as a dumper and driver for 40 years. So the way he knows and understands the story, nobody else will be able to tell it. So I like those stories which come from real life. Not just the fictional and imaginary tales, written within the boundaries of the four walls.

In the villages near the coal mines, almost every member of the community work in coal mines, not just men, but women too. For them to survive the heat, and the dust, if a certain numbness is not felt, those people who work in the coal mines won't be able to work. Everything will bother them more. So they don't drink for pleasure in the evening, they drink early in the morning and go to work so that they can get over the pain, the heat. They all get numb. 

Most of the time it used to be an entire night shoot, but there were days when we used to pack up at 6 pm, Then I had to remove my makeup and that took a lot of time, let's say 8 pm. Then the shooting location was an hour away from the place. By the time I used to reach home, it was 10 pm and I was completely dead by then. I hardly got time to be me, the superstar, while shooting this film. Because getting in, and getting out of character, becomes more hectic.

Not exactly these details, but we knew about his greatness. With Eega he gained national fame in India, but by then in the Telegu film industry, he was already well-recognised as a visionary director. He was one of the biggest directors in the industry. We observed that he was upping his game with each of his films. Rajamouli always chose to do something bigger, but of course, Oscar and all, I never saw that coming. But I'm very proud that it happened to him.

The success of all these films has assured me that if it is a good film that there is an audience for it who will encourage it.

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