Director Koratala Siva admits that he feels the weight of expectations ahead of his third directorial venture Janatha Garage. Given the scale of success of his previous two films – Mirchi and Srimanthudu – there is tremendous hype ahead of the release of Janatha Garage.
“Pressure is always there. This is not the first time I’m dealing with this. Obviously, after Srimanthudu, expectations are much higher but having already dealt with pressure, I’m better equipped to cope with it,” Koratala shared. Having worked already with Prabhas and Mahesh Babu, Koratala’s Janatha Garage features NTR Jr in the lead. When asked if it’s a conscious attempt to make different films with different stars, the director quipped, “Not really. In fact, the idea of making Janatha Garage came to mind much before I started Srimanthudu. For this film I wanted a young, intense actor and NTR was the best bet,” explains the 41-year-old. Apart from NTR, Janatha Garage also features the legendary Malayalam actor Mohanlal, who returned to Telugu cinema after more than two decades.
“It might be difficult for you to believe but I had visualised Mohanlal while writing this film, right from the start. While we weren’t too optimistic about bringing him on board, I was very keen to atleast approach him and make our best efforts to sign him. To our surprise, as soon as we narrated the script to him, he immediately agreed to the project,” he says, with a satisfied smile.
Like Srimanthudu, Koratala says that Janatha Garage will also have a message. “I always wanted to make films with a message. In my opinion, there should be a noble idea attached to a script, no matter how commercial it is. I don’t like loudness. It should depicted in the story and not through the dialogues,” he observes.