Dheekshith Shetty: ‘My biggest learning from working with Nani sir was…’

Kannada actor Dheekshith Shetty had a major role in Nani’s Dasara, for which he received a lot of praise. Working with the Telugu star was an eye opener for Dheekshith.

The role in the Telugu film Dasara is one that Dheekshith Shetty took up solely because it was a Nani-led project and without any inkling of what the character would be. Dheekshith was eventually given a very prominent role, side-by-side Nani, which, he says, was a leap of faith on the part of the team to trust a relative newbie like him with such a pivotal part. While there was some scepticism about whether he could pull of a rugged look, given that he’d always had a lover-boy image, Dheekshith says that one of his avatars from his Kannada film KTM, with a full-fledged beard, became the clincher.

Also read: Exclusive! Dheekshith Shetty: When I bagged Dasara, no one believed my role would be important

Before he went on set, Dheekshith was very conscious of the fact that when working with big stars, he would not be in a position to ask for a take to be repeated even if he’d made a mistake. “When the focus is on Nani sir, the rest of the cast has to adjust accordingly. So, all I could think of was to do my portions really well in a single-take. It had to be so good that I myself could feel it. I had to give my best in every shot. That’s the mindset I went with. On the set, though, neither of them had any starry airs about them. They were only focused about work,” reminisced Dheekshith on the Rajesh Reveals podcast.

Dheekshith Shetty: Nani sir will not let a schedule suffer because of him

One incident that really stuck with Dheekshith is when they were shooting amid a lot of coal dust, Nani had fallen terribly unwell. Dheekshith asked him why he wasn’t taking a day off to recuperate and his response was that if he were to call off shoot, it would impact the entire schedule, as far as other artistes’ dates go and that they’d probably be able to regroup only 15-20 days later, which would be a burden on production to maintain the sets for those many days. “Nani sir could have easily said that he could not shoot that day. There is no one who would have insisted that he turn up for work in that state. But that’s a choice he made. No one else should be troubled because of him,” said Dheekshith.

Also read: Exclusive! After Malayalam debut, Dheekshith Shetty begins work on 3 new Telugu films

His biggest learning from working with Nani, was when the Telugu superstar told Dheekshith that he’s financially so secure that he can do whatever he wishes to, whether it is taking his own sweet time to make films, head off to exotic destinations, buy luxury items, etc. But every morning, he chooses to head to the set of a film. He does two films in a year and shoots almost every single day. “Stars like Nani sir can live anyway they want, but if they are on a film set every morning without fail, it is because of the passion towards cinema. That really impacted me a lot,” says Dheekshith.

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