EXCLUSIVE! Sapthami Gowda on Kantara: It was physically draining because we had more than 60 per cent night shoot

Actor-director Rishab Shetty’s Kantara has turned out to be a phenomenon at the global box office. The concept of Bhoota Kola and Daiva garnered universal appeal and turned made this film a pan-India blockbuster. Apart from Rishab’s class act and direction, fans also showered praises and love on Sapthami Gowda for her subtle and natural performance as Leela. In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, the gorgeous lady opens up on Kantara’s success, her favourite compliment from fans and more.

Excerpts from the interview:

How you were approached for this role?

Actually, Rishab (Shetty) sir was hunting for a face, which will perfectly suit for the film. And he found my picture on Instagram and that’s how sir called me for the audition and the look test and then the look was completely fine. But the original movie in Kannada is Mangalore Kannada but I am from Bangalore, so there was a mismatch of languages there. So the accent and everything. So we started a workshop on the characterization and the language. So that took about two months or so and then during this process, the most exciting and the selling point of everything was when I went to meet sir on the first day, he showed me clips of what you’ve seen like Kola and Daiva on YouTube. So, once I watch that I said to myself I have to do everything from my end to be part of this movie because it was a big learning curve for me. I’ve been born and brought up in Bangalore, I stayed in Karnataka for 25-26 years and I had no clue about this kind of culture. So, it was a big learning process for me.

Reactions from family

Other than them saying that they’re very happy for me. There’s no change in how they treat me (laughs). They treated me the same way as to how they use to treat me before the release of the movie. I still have to do everything at home that I did previously, I still have to do it today. No changes on that but they are very happy, they are very proud that I got to be part of this movie. And they’ve always been supportive and they continue to do that even today.

Any compliment on social media, which you felt was the best thing?

I have received compliments like that but I haven’t taken that to my head because this is just my second movie and all these other actors or actresses, have done a lot of great performances already. So, I have a long way to go, but the biggest compliment that I got was that nobody like everybody who watched the movie said that they didn’t feel like I’ve learned the language and dubbed the language they thought I was like a native from the language. I was very scared because I didn’t want to feel or look, misplaced in the entire movie but today nobody sees that. They feel like I’m part of that same and I’ve come from Mangalore.

Looking at Kantara, one can easily say that it was a tough film to shoot. So, at any given point of time, you felt it is getting tough?

Given the sense, I had gone through workshops and in my head, I had this thing that whatever the movie requires, I’m going to do whatever the character asked for I’m going to give my 100% so there was no question of me feeling this is tough or anything. Because my mind was in such a space that everything that because I was enjoying the process so much, it never felt like I was doing some major task or something.

What difference you noticed in Rishab as an actor and as a director?

He is the same person but it’s a lot of responsibility right? When you’re both director and an actor. So, other than that, he was the same but there are a lot of times when sir used to come in front of the camera and say, okay, rolling, action and then do the scene. Because he was directing it too. But he was a great ball of energy on the set because he was the head of everything there. So he had that energy that used to get passed on to all of us.

Your fondest memory on the sets of Kantara?

So, we have a lot of Mangalore artists who’ve been a part of the movie and they’re all theatre actors. So, every day these artists do a lot of plays and skits in their own towns and cities. And Kishore sir, he’s such a great human being. I mean, he’s there in Bollywood, he’s there everywhere, he’s probably been to every industry that there is. He used to come and used to narrate his experiences with us and we use to have such a ball of a time listening to all the funny stories and everything that he had to share with us. So we use to have a great time and we created an association there. So the place we did our shooting is called Keradi. So, we created an association and because our entire set was put up there, we use to call it Keradi film city.

So, we have an association and I’m the only female member in the association. And we use to put in cash and one day in the early morning, all of us did Maggie for the entire set.  So we had all this kind of fun we’ve done. We’ve got Maggie, we’ve got chocolate for everybody because we had that association. So anybody who had to join association had a minimal amount to pay. So, we use to use all this money for social welfare activities during the shoot. So, I think that’s why we didn’t realize that we’ve done something this huge or this tedious because we were having fun. Yes, it is physically draining because we had more than 60% night shoot. So your sleep schedules are all messed up by the end of it. But you can’t really sleep a lot during the day, even if you try to. Physically, it use to take a toll on us, but we used to go on the set every day feeling the same excitement.

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