Making a movie is a lot like delivering babies: Lakshmi Manchu

Lakshmi Manchu is ���thrilled and relieved��� with the response for her latest film, Dongata. Likening the whole process of playing the lead role and producing the film to ���delivering a baby,��� she says, ���I���m a mother now, I���m finding a lot of ���similarities between being a mother and an actor. Quite frankly, the day of a film���s release is a lot like the day of delivery.It���s painful, nauseating and you have absolutely no control over it.���
Directed by Vamsi Krishna, Dongata has Lakshmi Manchu playing the role of an actress, who gets kidnapped. Explaining how she manages to juggle between her roles as an actor and a producer Lakshmi says, ���It���s amazing how things fall into place in the end, even though you feel drained out after taking care of the creative and financial aspects of the film. The toughest part of the job, for me are the negotiations that follow after a film is made till you finally release it. It���s all so complicated and I wish someone else did that for me (laughs). I���m lucky to find such out-of-the-box stories and this is the most fun film of my career.���
Apparently, Lakshmi and Vamsi were working on a different version of the same story, which was supposed to be directed by Ram Gopal Varma; however, it didn���t take off. Says Lakshmi Manchu, ���RGV felt that the initial version of this script wasn���t his genre. Since Vamsi and I had been working on different ideas, I asked him to rewrite the story and add more humour, characters and twists and turns in the screenplay. It all worked out pretty well, I think.���
Admittedly, the film���s climax was the toughest to conceive. ���We had to make the whole act of conning look convincing and interesting. The director drew lot of diagrams to make it easy for everyone to understand. I was pretty clear that I want my film to reach out to every segment of the audience. Dongata is not just a crime comedy, it also has a message about taking care of orphans. The sentimental scenes, in particular, were a huge hit with a big chunk of the audience.���
The icing on the cake, for her, was the song featuring nine stars ��� Nagarjuna, Ravi Teja, Rana, Simbu, Manoj Manchu, Nani, Taapsee appear. ���That���s my favourite part of the film. I giggle everytime I watch that. I guess I didn���t give them an option to say ���no��� when I called them to appear in the song,��� she signs off.