CHENNAI: His debut Telugu film Andala Rakshasi reaped him rich rewards with four films in Tollywood. Now, Naveen Chandra hits K Town again with Sarabham, post Sivappu and Bramman. Naveen believes that cinema is all about taking risks in order to stand out. City Express discovers that he’s lived up to his beliefs in Sarabham…
My character
I play an architect who wants to get rich at any cost. SaloniLuthra is my boss’ daughter. Naren is the boss.
Getting the hang of it
For my first shot in Sarabham, I had to hang upside down, semi-nude, and just boxers on, with cops hitting me with lathis and throwing water at me. The scene took two hours. The impact was lost when they just pretended to hit me. So they started hitting me in real! The expressions of pain are quite real. Moreover, the water got into my eyes, nose and throat, nearly choking me.
Doing a sky walk
The toughest scene in my career was having to hang upside down from the balcony of a 15-floor building. Director Arun Mohan and cameraman Vasantha Krishnan were hesitant to explain the scene. But it’s the most crucial scene in the movie, so I didn’t want to use a dupe.Naren sir and another actor held my legs as I hung upside down. A Go Pro camera was strapped to me. I had to recite nine lines of a dialogue while hanging. I got it right in the first take, but the camera team which was filming from another building needed more angles. So I repeated it all, nine more times! But the second time onwards, they attached a rope, binding me to a crane that hung perilously close above my head! My mom scolded me later for doing something so dangerous, but cinema is all about risks. One minute I was standing on the floor, the next minute, I felt I’m walking on the sky!
The fear factor
Problems arise only if you have self doubt. To succeed, I have to give my 200 per cent to cinema. Just singing and dancing like others isn’t enough to get ahead of the competition. I should do full justice to a director’s vision. Even the audience appreciates sincerity. The first thing I did when I hung upside down was to look at the ground below, to get rid of any fear. From then on, I just looked up at the sky and enjoyed the breeze and did my job.
Striking a balance, Naveen Style..
For one song sequence, I had to sing, looking drugged, sitting atop a minibus that was moving at 70 kms per hour. A 25-kg body mount camera and a five kg Go Pro camera were attached to my seated body. It gave me severe back pain. But I had to balance it all and sing wildly at the same time, through the streets of Chennai!
Sleepless In Chennai..
Due to the landlord’s change of plan, we had to shoot continuously for five days in an apartment — from 6am to 2 am the next day. The entire unit camped in a small flat. I hardly slept for five days. After all of it, my speech was slurring, especially as an after effect of the upside down shots during the last day of shoot there!
Dame luck smiles
The production team is the most professional and efficient I’ve seen. There was pucca planning and never a delay.