Kapata Nataka Sutradhari’s Dhiraj MV says ‘star tantrums’ drove him to act in his directorial debut

Kapata Nataka Sutradhari, a new-age political satire, about an event that occurs at a historical temple, will be in theatres on July 4, 2025

Dhiraj MV in a still from Kapata Nataka Sutradhari

Writer-director Dhiraj MV was not the first choice to play the protagonist in his directorial debut. He did pitch the film to a bunch of actors, but the ‘vibe’ that he got from most of them pushed him to taking up the role. Dhiraj is not entirely a novice in the Kannada film industry. He has assisted filmmakers like the (late) Guruprasad, Sunil Kumar Desai and done a few minor roles as an actor too. He’s also worked as a production executive, and one thing that struck him was the tantrums that certain actors throw on and off screen.

Dhiraj says that on one particular set, he’d received a call from an actor at 1 am, complaining about mosquitoes in the hotel room, while urging him to organize another accommodation. The debutant filmmaker says that he got those exact vibes from several actors that he pitched Kapata Nataka Sutradhari to, starting with only wanting to take meetings at expensive coffee shops. The hassle of having to deal with these fragile egos was a major factor that Dhiraj foresaw and decided to avoid it by taking up the main role.

Dhiraj on why a body suit was not on the cards for the character

More importantly, this was a role that required a physical transformation; the character had to be on the heavier side, which found no takers, and since Dhiraj had written it, he felt that he was the best fit for it. Thereafter, he began his slow and steady transformation of going from fit to flab with an added 45 kgs on him, albeit from a planned dietary regimen.

Why couldn’t he just make do with a prosthetic suit, like, for instance, the kind that Brendan Fraser wore in The Whale? “We did consider it initially, but then, as per the script, once this character crawls under the elephant’s statue and gets stuck, people try to push and pull him from different directions in an effort to get him out. Makeup and prosthetics experts said that chances of people realizing that it is a suit are more under this circumstance,” he explained.

Dhiraj adds that the pressure that they could apply on a suit vis a vis an actual body was different, and they did not have to worry about, say, a t-shirt riding up and exposing skin, instead of a body suit. Kapata Nataka Sutradhari will release in theatres on July 4, 2025.

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