Exclusive! Rag Mayur: I said yes to Modern Love Hyderabad immediately because it was in total contrast to Cinema Bandi

Corporate professional, film critic-turned-actor Rag Mayur made an assured debut with the Netflix release Cinema Bandi a year ago, in which he played Maridesh Babu, a barber with a zest for acting. The role was anything but him in real life and it required the right mix of sarcasm, innocence and comic timing in an actor to pull it off well. After acing that challenge in the much-loved rural comedy, Rag is back with another digital project, Modern Love Hyderabad, an Amazon Prime Video anthology of six shorts helmed by Nagesh Kukunoor, Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala and Devika Bahudhanam. He stars in the short named 'Finding your penguin', directed by Venkatesh Maha.

The actor, post the success of Cinema Bandi, knew of the need to diversify and challenge himself. "Post Cinema Bandi, I got a lot of calls from direction teams but most of them were offering me rural comedy roles. Even before the film released or became successful, I was very sure that whatever I took up next had to be drastically different. I was patiently waiting for a role that was set in a different space. As an actor, my wishlist of directors had always included names like Venkatesh Maha, Tharun Bhascker, Vivek Athreya and Uday Gurrala. Interestingly, I was approached by Tharun's team for an advertisement and Maha for a web original in a couple of months," he says.

Rag's happiness knew no bounds when Maha cast him as a sophisticated, urban youngster that's completely opposite to Maridesh Babu in Cinema Bandi. "Getting something so contrasting and to have a show backed by Amazon Prime Video, I immediately said yes. I met Maha during a five-day workshop before we kickstarted shooting. His approach towards his actors was very unique in comparison to regular acting workshops. We were in a hotel for five days and Maha is a director who'll enact and show you what he wants. It made my job easier and I just had to look at him, his pauses, body language to play my part."

The start wasn't all that easy though. "It took me a couple of days to be in sync with Maha's style because he draws his boundaries for actors clearly. For someone like me who was used to improv style more, it was a challenge. I was a different person during the workshops because he made me practice smiling; the character sports a bright smile throughout his portions. It was difficult to behave the same way all along but the process prepared me well for the shoot," he adds. 

Rag was also surprised by Maha's attention to detail during the making. "He was even particular about how the cell phone case of a character would look like and see to it that it reflected their personality. I was pleasantly surprised to see someone very assured of their craft."Komalee Prasad, his co-star in the short, was great fun to work with, he shares. "Most of my scenes were with her and characters, who play her friends. We bonded well during the workshops."

He also enjoyed the fact that the short was shot in sync-sound completely. "With dubbing, you need to make a lot of effort to recreate the little nuances. As an actor who's yet to understand the nuances of dubbing fully, the sync-sound experience made me feel at ease." 

Does he look at Modern Love Hyderabad as a tribute to the city? "In a way, the locations we shot were a tribute to Hyderabad. I was born and brought up in this city, I was happy to be shooting in locations that I'm very much familiar with. My portions were shot in and around Mehdipatnam, Koti Women's College (in which my aunt was a librarian). My uncle spent his early years reading extensively in the same college. Koti Women's College and Mehdipatnam capture the essence of the city. Hyderabad has changed a lot in the decade or so and my film in Modern Love deals with the contemporary mindsets, the way people look at relationships these days."

Associating with two of the biggest digital platforms Amazon Prime Video and Netflix in his first two projects was indeed a happy coincidence."I was happy myself too because of the creative freedom we would get. For a one-film old actor like me, equations may change when I'm part of a feature film. You may not know the scope of your role and how much can you experiment with it. The digital space gives me a chance to explore as much as I can and once producers are confident that I can pull off any role, I may get meaty offers in feature films too. I'm lucky to have two releases with streaming giants." 

Will there be a common thread that connects the six shorts in Modern Love Hyderabad? In response, Rag states, "I have no idea about the other shorts in Modern Love Hyderabad. Various teams worked in different timelines, I only got to know the cast, and crew of the other shorts. Beyond that, even I will have to discover the show along with the audience. As a viewer, I am very eager to watch Uday Gurrala's short."

He has interesting projects up his sleeve in the coming months. While Rag plays one of the lead roles in a web show backed by a leading production house in Telugu, he has also signed a film as an antagonist in another unique feature film. "I am very excited to be getting varied roles early into my career and I'll speak more about them when the time is right."