The first thing that strikes you when you see actor Charan Deep on screen, are his eyes. As he crunches bones with his punches in Sigaram Thodu, the vicious look in his eyes sends chills down the spine. But the actor is the exact opposite when you meet him.
"Vikram Prabhu told me that my ferocious look and powerful eyes are my plus points as a villain. Monal Gajjar would tease me that girls would be afraid to talk to me. But I'm ferocious only on screen," he laughs.
Playing the brawny ATM thief who kills first and thinks later, Charan Deep's tall, muscled frame fits the character to a T.
Grateful to director Gaurav, for his big break in Tamil, Charan feels that Sigaram Thodu has been a lucky charm.
"It was after I signed Sigaram Thodu last year, that I got an offer to do a role in Jilla (which released first) and also bagged five more films in Telugu and Kannada," says the actor who debuted in Telugu with Billa Ranga this year.
His films include playing a chieftain in S S Rajamouli's magnum opus Baahubali, apart from Pataas and Tungabhadra in Telugu and Boxer in Kannada.
A BTech grad with an MBA degree, the Hyderabad-based actor prepared himself well for a career in films, for two years. "I weighed 110 kg earlier but lost weight and developed a six pack. I learnt mixed martial arts, which came in handy for my role in Sigaram Thodu," he reveals.
Charan is not averse to taking risks to achieve his goal, "In the jail scene in the film, my shirt is supposed to catch fire and I have to remove it in 20 seconds. We took all safety precautions. But it took three takes. I got burnt in the process, since the fire material used was highly combustible. But I refused any dupe because I don't mind taking on challenges,” he says. But there is one shot that hit him emotionally, "In one scene, Sathyaraj sir holds onto my foot and I drag him along. I found that extremely difficult to enact, because he's such a senior artiste. I was very hesitant but he put me at ease," he says.