EXCLUSIVE: Sukumar on Pushpa success & more: ‘I am doing a film each with Vijay Deverakonda and Ram Charan’
In an exclusive interview with Pinkvilla, Sukumar confirmed that his next two films are like Vijay Deverakonda and Ram Charan respectively. Read details.
Sukumar is currently busy with the pre-production of Pushpa: The Rule, which he intends to take on floors from February end with Allu Arjun and Fahadh Faasil. In an exclusive chat with Pinkvilla, the filmmaker has opened up about his future plan of action and confirmed a film each with Vijay Deverakonda and Ram Charan.
“I have a film with Ram Charan, but it’s not locked yet. I am also doing a film with Vijay Deverakonda. So right now, it’s Pushpa 2, and that might be followed by Vijay Deverakonda film and then Ram Charan,” says Sukumar. The Ram Charan film will mark their reunion after the humongous success of Rangasthalam.
Talking about the world of Pushpa: The Rise, Sukumar informs, “I started researching on Sandalwood smuggling to discover that more than 1 lakh 80 thousand crore of Sandalwood is smuggled to China and Japan. Initially, the research was for a web-series, but then I thought that this could be a commercial backdrop for a massy film. And that’s how I started writing the script.” He is quick to add that Pushpa at first started as a one part film. “But when I got an interval point, I thought we could split it into two parts as the length kept on increasing.”
My experience from the village is different, I have seen so many characters there. I felt I could make another film rooted in the villages and now, as you can see, Pushpa is completely different from Rangasthalam
Sukumar
Allu Arjun is conventionally known to play stylish characters. And that’s primarily the reason why Sukumar got him to play a complete de-glam role in Pushpa. “I wanted to show him in a way that surprises the audience. The idea was to shock them and grab their attention. Allu Arjun and I wanted to work together for a long time and we were just waiting for the right opportunity. He is a very good performer and I wanted to explore that side of him as an actor by making the character bigger than his persona,” explains Sukumar.
The film is doing very well in the Hindi belts too. Did he expect this sort of response? “No, we didn’t. In-fact, I made a Telugu film. Allu Arjun and my producers pushed me to release it in other languages. We didn’t do any publicity and yet we are getting good collections. It’s a surprise for me,” he smiles. After Rangasthalam, this was another film where Sukumar went rural with his approach. Ask him if he was ever worried about repeating himself and he signs off, “I come from a village. In-fact, I have lived there for 30 years. My experience from the village is different, I have seen so many characters there. I felt I could make another film rooted in the villages and now, as you can see, Pushpa is completely different from Rangasthalam.” Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates.