Vijay Deverakonda on breaking by the nepotistic Telugu trade: ‘Probably the single hardest thing I’ve accomplished in my life’

In 2016, Vijay Deverakonda bought consideration for turning his modest romantic comedy Pelli Choopulu to a a number of National Award successful hit. A yr later, he delivered the blockbuster Arjun Reddy. But the actor says behind his consecutive public success was years of personal wrestle, the place he felt he had “nowhere to go” as a result of “nobody was looking.”

Vijay Deverakonda has emerged because the breakout star of the Telugu trade, which is dominated by stars from movie households, from Rana Daggubati, Mahesh Babu, Jr. NTR, Allu Arjun, Naga Chaitanya to Prabhas. As he now gears as much as transition to Bollywood together with his upcoming Liger, the actor displays on his journey to date and says it wasn’t a cake stroll.

“It’s not easy. If someone wants to attempt it… It’s probably the single hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life, to find a platform where your voice can be heard and you can be seen as an actor. It was really hard,” Vijay Deverakonda says in a bunch interview.

The actor says, earlier than his display screen debut in a supporting position in 2012’s Life Is Beautiful, he was actively concerned in theatre. Vijay would do one play and have three theatre teams ready to signal him up. Within no time, he starred in six performs consecutively. Naturally, he thought, filmmakers would rush to solid him.

But nobody did.

“When I completed theatre, I believed I’d announce I wish to be an actor and all of the producers will line up. I believed I’ll debut and I’ll change into an actor. But immediately once I wished to, there was nowhere to go or discuss to. Nobody was wanting.

“I would apply for audition calls and then wait for casting opportunities, like every struggling actor does. Every night I would sleep with a thought that I would get a call. From one of my plays, somebody spotted me I did a small role and then director Sekhar Kammula gave me a casting call. It was a supporting role. But then again, there was no work for one year.”

The work that did are available in later, Vijay Deverakonda says, have been attempting to fit him in additional supporting roles. But Vijay believed he was meant for “something big”. So he waited after which, together with a couple of associates of his, he made Pelli Choopulu.

“We made it in Rs 60 lakhs, none of us took any cash. We raised some cash from two buyers. It was a wrestle to launch it. We went round to each manufacturing home exhibiting the movie, asking individuals to assist launch it. There was one explicit producer who noticed it and appreciated it.

“He decided to help us release it. It opened very small but went on to make Rs 25-30 crore and eventually got a National Award. That launched me, it was my first film as a solo lead. Suddenly everybody knew me. After that Arjun Reddy happened and since then I haven’t been out of work,” he provides.

After Arjun Reddy, Vijay Deverakonda went on to star in movies like Geetha Govindam, Dear Comrade and World Famous Lover. His newest Liger, which was shot concurrently in Hindi and Telugu, aligned with the sort of cinema Vijay Deverakonda was craving to do.

“I have decided to pick only films that I know that will work. And I believe I can. Maybe I’m naïve to believe this. But I believe that I can pick films and make sure that they work. So I’ve decided to work only with people that can ensure the same vision and scripts that I really like,” he says.

Co-starring Ananya Panday, Liger is scheduled to open in cinemas on August 25. The movie’s launch comes at a time when most Hindi films have failed on the field workplace, with many believing that South Indian cinema is managing to come back out with higher movies. But Vijay says, all the pieces is cyclical.

“There’s a certain kind of cinema that India is watching and it so happens that the South of India is making it. But it’s a cycle, right now this is working then people will be tired of this and something else will come. Nothing is permanent,” he provides.