Aditi Rao Hydari: The story is the hero of Maha Samudram

It's been nearly two and a half years since Aditi Rao Hydari has had a theatrical release and she finds it relieving to connect with theatre-going audiences again with the multi-starrer Maha Samudram. The Telugu film, also starring Sharwanand, Siddharth, Anu Emmanuel, Rao Ramesh, Jagapathi Babu and others, is slated to release on October 14. In an interaction with the media in Hyderabad, the actress elaborated on her role in Maha Samudram and working with her co-stars, director Ajay Bhupathi during the shoot.

"I play a girl named Maha in the film who's sweet, hard-working and true to her word. She takes care of her parents and is quite composed in her behaviour. I felt very happy to be cast in the role. I watched RX100 before I accepted Maha Samudram and I felt the director Ajay Bhupathi had a good command over the portrayal of human emotions on screen. His storytelling is something to watch out for. I listened to the script two years ago and he was firm that only I could do justice to it. He waited for my dates for a long time," she says.

Talking about her on-set experiences, Aditi shares, "We were all fans of Ajay Bhupathi on the sets. I completely trusted his vision. As a person, he is a child at heart and keeps everyone around him happy. He has such great conviction in the film's story. The entire shoot was a breeze. Many in the sets complained that Ajay keeps showering praises upon me while just saying 'okay' to the takes of other actors (laughs). I was waiting to do a full-on love story for a long and was thrilled when I heard Maha Samudram."

She opines that Sharwanand is an extremely subtle, intense actor and talks very little on set. In the case of Siddharth, Aditi was surprised by the command that her co-actor had on his craft and several aspects related to filmmaking, be it editing, music, lyrics and the language. "Never did any of them behave like stars on sets. We were simply playing our characters Vijay, Arjun and Maha. Maha Samudram is a plot-driven film where all characters have equal importance. The story is the hero of Maha Samudram."

While Aditi hoped to dub for herself in the film, she stepped back because of the peculiarities with the Vizag slang. "I wasn't sure if I could do justice to the slang. It would've taken me a lot of time to do it and I didn't want to put that pressure on the team. They chose another dubbing artiste. At least, for the next film that I'll do with Ajay Bhupathi, I'll make sure I dub for myself. I tend to do two films with every director I like. I think it'll be the same with Ajay Bhupathi as well."

Also read: Siddharth on Maha Samudram: The friendship with Sharwanand is my biggest takeaway from this film