Chaithra J Achar on Sapta Sagaradaache Ello: Rakshit is not a hero who wants the story to revolve around him

Chaithra J Achar had just had a film called Gilky in theatres when she was approached for a role in Hemanth M Rao’s Sapta Sagaradaache Ello. When the offer for the film came, Chaithra went to the meeting with Hemanth and Rakshit Shetty, ready to decline it, even though she was dying to work with them. “I was sure that if my character did not have any major contribution to the narrative, I would say no and come home. But Hemanth is such a sensible writer and Rakshit is not a hero who wants his films to revolve only around him and his heroism. All three of us – Rakshit, Rukmini Vasanth and I – have our own space and things to do in this film. In such a big production, Hemanth wrote characters that had just as much weightage as the other,” she says.

Elaborating on her character, Chaithra tells us, “Surabhi is an independent, strong women that audiences will relate to. However, she is also the kind of person who you will not be able to agree with in terms of what she does in life. She will make people wonder that maybe this is how such independent women live. She is, say, in her late 20s or early 30s, and getting that right was a tad difficult for me,” she tells us, adding that she shot for Toby and Sapta Sagaradaache Ello simultaneously. “I was shuttling between these two sets for about 2-3 months and in Toby, since my character goes from a high school student to being a mother, I had to put on a bit of weight to look the part. I had to also ensure that any such transformation does not affect the continuity in Sapta Sagaradaache Ello," she adds.

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Chaithra’s character appears in the second instalment of the film, which will be in theatres on October 20 and comes close on the heels of Toby, in which she had a prominent and very strong role. And going by the fleeting glimpse of her role in Sapta Sagaradaache Ello, her sari-clad, serious look could get her typecast. Are filmmakers looking at her as the actress for ‘performance-oriented roles ‘? “If someone tells me that they think I will suit a certain character, that is when I reject it. I would want to hear the script and understand the role. I want to see if I want to do it. So far, I have not had such an experience. My career graph has been about doing different kind of roles, but if someone sees Toby’s Jenny and brings me another such character, that’s a strict no for me,” she says.

Read: Toby movie review: Raj B Shetty presents a heart-achingly beautiful and tragic tale