#Behindthecamera: 'Rama Rao on Duty' actress Rajisha Vijayan: Most North Indian audiences know all the Telugu actors and their movies due to the dubbed versions of the film - Exclusive

Malayali actress Rajisha Vijayan has done a few Tamil films with Suriya, Dhanush and other popular Kollywood actors. She hosted several TV shows before making her film debut with the 2016 film ‘Anuraga Karikkin Vellam’.

The Kerala State film award winner is now making her acting debut in Telugu films with Ravi Teja’s next film ‘Ramarao on Duty’. As she plays one of the female leads in the film. ETimes Telugu approached the talented actress to know more about her role, her debut Telugu film, and her career, Below are the excerpts.

How 'Ramarao On Duty' happened to you?

'Ramarao on-duty director Sarath Sir called me one day and said he has seen my Tamil film ‘Karnan’ and he liked it and he said he is doing a film with Ravi Teja sir in Telugu and there are two characters in the film and he narrated one character to me and I liked it. I always wanted a character that has a scope for me to perform, especially when I'm making a debut in a new industry, I’m not a typical heroine in this film but this is a character that has some substance to it.

For me, it was always the presence and effectiveness of the character rather than the screen time. Malini, my character in the film is beautiful yet strong and she is the reason for the story to unfold. So, that’s how I'm into the picture.

How many days did you work on this project?

If you see it as no.of days there were a lot of days with breaks due to Covid, Omicron, and other waves one after the other. As every schedule got postponed or either extended. So it took a lot of days. Maybe I shot for around 20 days and it took a lot of time for us to go to Spain and other things.

How was it working with Ravi Teja in the film? Have you watched his earlier films?

Yes, I watched a lot of his films, as I was brought up in the North part of India, as my dad who was in the army later in CBI used to get transferred often, so I lived very less in Kerala than in North and in my growing years I mostly watched only Hindi films. I used to watch his films, especially in the Hindi dubbed version, I used to think that he is a Hindi hero. Because I didn’t know there were dubbed Telugu films when I was at school. In one of the places I lived in Orissa, everyone knows him, in fact, every Telugu hero.

Nowadays people are talking a lot about Pan-India films, but that reach used to be a common thing even before the term was coined for Ravi Sir. I liked his films, he was such a mass hero and a superstar and I was surprised at his humbleness on the sets despite being such a big star. He treats everyone with respect, be it a production boy or a co-star. He is also fun to work with on the sets.

How was working with the director Sarath Mandava? As the film is also his Telugu debut

He has so much clarity about what he is doing, and he is a perfectionist. He’ll fight for what he wants such as emotion, location or property so on and on. The film is a mass film with a lot of entertaining sequences such as song, dance, fights, comedy and other things besides a strong thread of storyline in the film which happens in the mid-90s and is relevant even today as well. He has taken a lot of effort to make a film as an entertainer and at the same time a thought-provoking one. He also hired a wonderful crew for his films such as Sathyan Suriyan on cinematography, Sam CS on the music and other talented technicians and he pulled off the film with so much quality and perfection.

Do you have the film sequences with Divyansha, the other heroine in the film? And who dubbed for your character in the film?

Yes, I have sequences with Divyansha. Coming to my Telugu dubbing, I'm not yet perfect in Telugu, I have just started learning it, so, some local talents have dubbed for my role. In Tamil, I just started dubbing. So soon I'll also do my dubbing in Telugu as well.

Dubbing for Tamil must be easy as most of the Malayalees know Tamil, which can’t be the case with Telugu for the Malayalee tongue, is that true?

No, Not necessarily all the Malayalees knew Tamil, at least in my case, as I was brought up in the North part of India, I only used to speak Malayalam at home not with outsiders. I used to read Hindi at school. It was only my mom who made me learn how to read and write Malayalam. Even Tamil was very new to me until I started acting in movies, I learned it for my career and now doing the same for Telugu.

You have witnessed the working styles of Malayalam and Tamil Industries and how different was it for you to work in a Telugu film as it was your first film here?

Though the languages are different at the end of the day we are all making a cinema for a theatre audience. The process is the same and while acting your acting differs from genre to genre. Your actions may not be the same for action film vs realistic film, we’ll have certain differences even when the same person is acting in these two genres. The only difference I found is Telugu Industry has a lot more budget compared to Malayalam cinema In fact unlike all the south Industries, Telugu has the most budget. This is why they make big canvas films all the time. In Kerala, there are only 240 (approx.) theatres. While in Andhra & Telangana there are nearly 2000 theatres. Now due to OTT, dubbing, subtitles, and all, we have lots of audiences from different languages. This is shocking to the Bollywood industry as the south industry has got lots of audiences all of a sudden.

How come Malayali movie makers come up with better stories than rest of the movie industries all the time?

The reason is in Malayalam, the script is the most important thing to make a film, it's not the budget, the Producer, not even the writer or the star cast but the Script, script and script. Moreover, in Kerala, unless they lock the bound script, they’ll not start shooting a film. This is why many people always work hard to write a good script.

You have acted with different established actors, what have you learned from them?

See, All these people I have acted with are not one film wonders, they have been in the industry for years, therefore they have built-in so many good qualities in them consistently over years. Therefore there is so much to learn from them. Working with all these Is a wonderful experience. Suriya sir always used to be in the character on the sets and he was very humble with other co-stars. The same was the case with other big actors as well. Karthi sir was very sweet, he’ll treat his colleagues equally. They are ready to take the input even from a small actor.

What is your next lineup of movies in Telugu and other industries?

Yesterday, one of my movies in Malayalam with Fahadh Fassil was released. ‘Rama Rao on duty’ is releasing soon in Telugu. In Malayalam, I have shot over 4 films that are about to be released and I’m wishing to work on more and more films in Telugu post this film. Because here the audience has so much love for films. They see film actors as demigods here.

They love even the person who is not from their language if the movie is good. See I have one of my Malayalam films titled ‘June’ dubbed and released here, but believe me the no.of messages and calls I got were more from a Telugu audience than my native audience, which shocked me. Also, right now Telugu films have been blessed that they are traveling all across. Therefore, If I do a film in Telugu now, and tomorrow even if I do a Malayalam film Telugu audience will still watch my film.

But due to the OTTs and all these dubbed content, theatre audiences are getting reduced day by day, isn't that so?

Of course, this is a very sad part, whenever you make a film with such huge equipment and well-educated & talented technicians we make films for the theatre audience, that is what Malayali Superstar Mammootty says, they don’t act for the mobile (or) the laptop audience. The sound designer does the sound designing for the theatre, not the laptop speakers, the same is the case with DI and other crafts. But now due to the Covid and the OTT Boom, people are reduced to turning up at the theatres.

But cinema deserves to be watched in a theatre, not on mobiles & Laptops. However, now covid is fading, therefore, the public is expected to come and watch in the theatres. We have seen the recent responses of ‘RRR’ and ‘KGF2’, so, these big spectacle films are bringing in the audience to theatres and ‘Rama Rao on Duty' is also a big mass film.