Can Vijay Deverakonda And Samantha Play Relatable Roles? Kushi Director Shiva Nirvana Answers

It can be difficult to accept performers in certain roles when we can clearly see how significant the difference between their off-screen persona and the characters they are portraying. We, the audience, now have access to peek into the carefully curated display of actors’ lives on social media profiles, and this, at times, makes it difficult for us to accept them doing a few simple things on screen like the rest of us. Vijay Deverakonda, the star of Kushi, for instance, can be seen travelling in chartered flights and escorted by bodyguards during the promotions of a film, in which, ironically, he is playing a humble youngster, earning 40k per month. The off-screen image of the actors can prevent us from fully believing the simplicity and normality films like Kushi need to fly high.

In an interview with Film Companion before the film’s release, the film’s writer and director, Shiva Nirvana speaks about actors like Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha and how they bring the believability factor to their roles. He says, “Actors with a perfect command and acting brilliance, will just dive into the characters and become the one so easily. Actors like Nani, Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha among others have that brilliance. It is so simple that, if the actors didn't have that command, we wouldn’t watch them playing many different roles and succeed every time. The actors will convince us with that skill. The believability completely depends on their performance. Look at Sam garu in the film’s poster. Does she look like this in her Instagram profile? But she still manages to get into the role.”

Shiva believes that, as a director, he has to help his actors understand the characters and their actions. He says, “I won’t enact all the time and mostly focus on narrating the script, making the actors understand the characters’ nuances. I speak to the actors a lot just about the characters. I write every small reaction the character gives, and their basic activities including how they talk, how they look at each other, and how they behave with others, etc. This helps the actors understand the character better. We don’t see Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha wearing ID cards, carrying lunch boxes and going to the office in real life but we believe when they do those things on screen; they are very good actors and they easily transform themselves. If it is about actors with no such skill and brilliance, then it becomes tough to make the audience believe the characters’ existence. We just miss the soul of the character. It is all about skill and acting brilliance”.