D Sathyaprakash made his mark in Sandalwood with his Kannada debut Rama Rama Re, and gave the industry a good actor in Nataraj. The actor has now won an offer from a Hollywood director.
Nataraj apparently was spotted by the Hollywood filmmaker Sandy Sai, who watched his Rama Rama Re on Netflix. The actor says, “He is an Indian NRI settled in the US for the past 14 years and has his own Hollywood production house, and has worked with few feature films and short movies.
He watched my performance in Rama Rama Re and contacted me to discuss a one-liner, about a journey from India to California. He is keen to direct a Kannada film under his production house and will be coming to India in December, when we will take the project forward. I am focussing on content-based stories and therefore am waiting for the filmmakers to come down”.
Meanwhile, Nataraj is excited about his next Kannada project Kalbettada Daroode Kooraru. The film, directed by Deepak Maduvanalli, is based on a novel written by Anush Shetty, which has been adapted for the silverscreen. The film has cinematography by Kiran Hampapura.
“Earlier I used to have a long beard and a moustache for my last movie and in this one I will need to get rid of both,” he says, adding with a laugh, “Now people will know who Nataraj is… We have completed 60 per cent of the shoot and the next schedule starts next week.”He has also planned his third Kannada outing, which will have him play a hero, and the script and dialogues for this are being written by Sathyaprakash. This movie will be directed by another artiste.
“Rama Rama Re director is busy with his next subject, a children’s film produced by Umapathy,” says Nataraj. “While the rest of artistes and technicians will be part of this project too, we are looking for a director who can do justice to this”.
Nataraj says Rama Rama Re’s character was difficult to live with. “I couldn’t reconcile myself to the life of a hangman. I had delivered the performance with minimal dialogues and mostly using facial expressions. I am happy that my performance was appreciated, so I will be careful about the subjects I choose henceforth,” he says.