He’s a scion of the one of the most renowned film families in the country. Megastar Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan are his uncles, Ram Charan Teja is his cousin and Allu Arjun is his brother. His father Allu Arvind’s production house Geetha Arts is a name to reckon with in the industry. Yet Sirish Allu, who has taken the plunge into acting with Gouravam, doesn’t seem swayed by his starry lineage.
While he could have easily chosen the commercial masala route to stardom, he preferred to debut with Prakash Raj Productions’ bilingual, Gouravam. The film, directed by Radha Mohan, is based on the sensitive issue of honour killings plaguing the country and Yami Gautam plays his pair.
In a chat with CE, Sirish opens up, “I wanted to break free from the image that stars from my family have — doing larger than life roles. I wanted to prove myself as an actor first and push myself into developing my craft. Stardom can come later.”
A little known fact is that Sirish has was a child actor in TV serials and films like Mayabazaar and Pratibandh. After schooling at Padma Seshadri in Chennai and armed with a degree in Mass Communication from National College, Mumbai, he became Geetha Arts’ executive producer for Ghajini.
Though the pull towards acting was always there, he refused all offers. “My cousin Ram Charan and friend Rana Daggubatti would often ask me why I didn’t take up acting. But I felt I needed to prepare myself first,” he smiles. Sirish did a three-month acting course with Vidur Chaturvedi, who has trained Bollywood biggies Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor, at his Kreating Characters school in Mumbai. A three-month course in stunts with Pandian Master in Chennai followed. He acted in three short films directed by Ravikumar Choudhary and Maruthi, which got him comfy before the camera. Radha Mohan’s guidance helped him too. “He let us get into the skin of the character and never imposed anything. Acting was an organic process with him,” he says.
Sirish discussed his decision to turn hero with uncle Chiranjeevi first. Sirish recalls, “Megastar asked me what I thought my USP would be and how I would stand apart from other actors. He gave me the go-ahead when my answers satisfied him. I’m waiting to see the final cut of Gouravam with him, my father and brother Arjun on April 16.”