Chiranjeevi, Amitabh Bachchan open up about Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy in interview hosted by Farhan Akhtar

Prior to the release of the historical drama Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy, Farhan Akhtar recently hosted a special interaction between Amitabh Bachchan and Chiranjeevi. While the film features Chiranjeevi as the Kurnool-based freedom fighter, who led the first rebellion against the British, Amitabh will portray Guru Gosayi Venkanna, his mentor).

Farhan shared a photograph with the two legendary actors.

Amitabh shared that Chiranjeevi reached out to him and offered the role of Gosaayi Venkanna. "When he called, I said yes. There was no question about not doing it." To this Chiranjeevi added, "When we decided to do this film, my director (Surender Reddy) asked me, 'Who'll play your Guru? Though it is a small role, length-wise, it has to be something bigger than you." He admitted that he was unsure whether Amitabh would agree to star in Sye Raa as he mostly worked in Bollywood films.

They also discussed Chiranjeevi's brush with politics, which Amitabh said he had warned the actor against. He revealed that he had given the same advice to Rajinkanth and Pawan Kalyan.

Chiranjeevi said that he had always wished to portray a freedom fighter on screen. He explained that nobody knew about Narasimha Reddy, who fought against the British for freedom much before the sepoy mutiny of 1857. He revealed that he was approached with the story almost a decade ago but he could not take up the project due to budget constraints. Chiranjeevi further said that a franchise like Baahubali has paved way for Sye Raa and gave the makers hope that their film will be well-received by a pan India audience. He pointed out that besides Amitabh, Sye Raa's cast includes actors from Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada film industries, which is another reason why moviegoers will choose to watch the film.

"Anytime you talk about the freedom of the country, you want to talk about getting rid of the invader. It always had a great passionate and great patriotic value. Then when you attach emotion to it, you attach Indian ethos, Indian sentiment, our sanskriti (culture), somewhere it hits a very raw nerve," said Amitabh when asked whether Sye Raa would encourage similar content in the future.

The music of Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy is composed by Amit Trivedi, while the lyrics have been written by Seetharama Sastry. The drama releases on 2 October in Telugu and will be dubbed in Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam as well. Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy will be distributed in Hindi by AA Films and Farhan via Excel Entertainment.

Watch the video here.