Not disillusioned by flops: Chetan

If you thought he’d be cooling his heels at home after two misses at the box office — Birugaali and Suryakaanti — think again.
In fact, Chetan will soon be making his debut in Tollywood, besides penning the script for his next Kannada film. “It’s a bilingual love story to be directed by Leader and Happy Days director Shekhar Kammula’s associate, Shashi Kiran.He’s making the film in Tamil, too. What I liked best about Shashi is that he gave me a fully bound script at the first meeting. Yes, I was impressed by what was written in there also,” says Chetan.
Ask him if the move to do a Telugu project is because his Sandalwood career hasn’t gone the way he expected it to, and he vehemently denies it. “I’m not disillusioned by flops. My move to do a Telugu film and my career here are unrelated,” explains Chetan. And with the bilingual, the actor hopes to explore newer avenues as an actor. “As an artiste, you can’t afford to be confined. I’ve tried different genres in Kannada, and now I’ve got a chance to do that in a new industry. It’s about adding new dimensions to your career,” he says.
That’s what Chetan’s doing back home as well — taking up new challenges. After starting off with writing the screenplay for his latest film, Mareyalaare, Chetan is now working on a new script with buddy Charisma Bhardwaaj for another film. “It’s a commercial film and deals with music and addiction,” he tells us.
But while audiences raved about him in the non-commercial Aa Dinagalu, his maar-peet in subsequent commercial flicks didn’t go down well with viewers. “It’s about blending star power with performance-oriented scripts. While working on Aa Dinagalu was fab, I also enjoyed doing cool stuff like bashing up gundas and transcending reality in my other films,” he states.
One of the points raised by most critics was his anglicised Kannada accent. Does he feel the audience is able to relate to him in spite of that? “In Suryakaanti, I was an NRI and I went by the director’s call. I’ll work on it. But when a venture is successful, people find everything about it wonderful. If not, there are umpteen reasons you could find fault with it. But I’m an eternal optimist,” signs off a confident Chetan.