Nanda Kishore is one of those few directors who has balanced between directing big stars and upcoming talents. The director, who made his debut with Adhyaksha starring Sharan, collaborated with Sudeep in Ranna, Upendra in Mukunda Murari, Dhruva Sarja in Pogaru, Pradeep Bagodia in Tiger, Manuranjan Ravichandran in Bruhaspathi.
His latest will be Raana and it will star Shreyas Manju in the lead. The director differentiates working with stars and newcomers. “It is very easy to handle a star because you can fit them into the character, but the difficulty lies in making the audience feel connected to the role. In the case of newcomers, it gets difficult to fit them into unique roles, but it is very easy to convince the audience.
This is something I’ve gauged over the years,” says Nanda, who also explains that today’s audience is intelligent, but that doesn’t mean the director should sweat it out to make their work feel intellectual. “As a director, we should stick to the basics of entertainment, and just keep it realistic,” he says.
Coming to Raana, Nanda Kishore reveals that story is not penned by him, and he has gone ahead with a script chosen by producer K Manju and has his son and lead Shreyas Manju. “Raana is a simple story about a youth who has unpredictable goals. How he goes about to reach them is the one line,” he says.
Nanda Kishore asserts that Shreyas Manju is an actor, who has a lot of potential and puts in a lot of effort. “Shreyas Manju is a wholesome package. He is an actor with a good personality, a good dancer, is good with stunts, and has the looks. He is also dedicated, and aspiring.”
The film presented by K Manju, and produced by Gujjal Purushotham stars Reeshma Nanaiah as the female lead and has Rajini Bharadwaj, Raghu, and Mohan Dhanraj playing prominent characters.
Raana will have music by Chandan Shetty and cinematography by Shekhar Chandra.