Anil Ravipudi on ‘Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu’: 'I Wanted To Bring Back The Real Chiranjeevi Garu Swag'

Anil Ravipudi is on a streak. The Telugu filmmaker, who has given back-to-back hits with entertainers, has now broken records with Chiranjeevi’s Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu, which grossed ₹375 crores in 25 days. In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, the filmmaker expresses why this theatre response gives him hope. 

“The genre can pull people to theatres. Nowadays, there's a vacuum in theatres after one blockbuster, where people aren't coming to the auditoriums. When films are rooted and relatable, people want to come to the theatre. Numbers like this show that people are accepting of films on the big screen. That gives a lot of hope and happiness to me,” he says. 

With MSG, the idea was to bring back and reinvent Chiranjeevi’s swag and flair for humour. “Chiru garu is very good at comedy. His comedies in the 90s, such as Bavagaru Bagunnara and Choodalani Vundi, were blockbusters. During my first discussion with Chiranjeevi garu, I clearly mentioned that I'm going to recreate Chiru garu's swag and style. When I was a kid, I would get inspired by him and would clap and celebrate his movies and songs. I wanted to bring back that glory and the real Chiru swag into the film. He was very excited, saying, "You're so confident, so do whatever you want." He gave so much freedom to me.”

Chiru’s style is in the vein of his work, he adds. “His style and aura gave us the energy to work. He knows what the director wants out of a scene. He always goes with the script. He lived in the role. He never behaved like megastar Chiranjeevi. Once he's into the character, he just transforms. He put everything into the role to act like a common man. And this is exactly what I wanted, and it was so special.”

There’s one compliment from the superstar that still makes him emotional. Ravipudi recalls filming the scene between Sasirekha (Nayanthara) and her mother-in-law (Zarina Wahab) discussing marriage troubles over a cup of coffee. “Chiranjeevi garu liked the treatment of the scene very much. He never saw any of his scenes during editing, but he asked me to bring this scene for him to see. He watched it and praised me. He told me to remain grounded. He told me the scene reminded him of K Balachander garu and K Viswanath garu. He complimented me not for his own scenes, but for something like this. This made me so emotional.”

The film, which co-stars Nayanthara and Venkatesh Daggubati, will be available for streaming on Zee5 from February 11 in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali.