PremiumThe Girlfriend's Dheekshith Shetty: Rashmika Mandanna is the most hard-working co-star I have come across
Dheekshith Shetty is the boyfriend in Rashmika Mandanna's The Girlfriend, a film on which she never made the former feel that she is a big star.
Last Updated: 08.38 PM, Feb 25, 2025
One of Dheekshith Shetty’s upcoming films in Telugu is the Rahul Ravindran directed The Girlfriend, with Rashmika Mandanna in the lead. Dheekshith is paired with Rashmika in the film and says that he’s immensely proud of his co-star’s growth from being a Kannada actress to now, being a national star. “She is one of the most hard-working actors I have come across,” said Dheekshith on the Rajesh Reveals podcast.
Dheekshith, who prided himself on his work ethic as the most hard-working, got a reality check when he met Rashmika. “She’s a lot ahead of me on that scale,” said Dheekshith. To cite an example, the actor says that Rashmika shoots almost round-the-clock with very little rest. “While we were shooting for The Girlfriend, she was also working on Pushpa 2: The Rule and a few Hindi films. And yet, every time she was on set, she’d be brimming with energy. In fact, once, we had a 6 am to 2 am (next morning) schedule. After we’d wrapped up, she called her trainer to meet her in the gym by 2.30 am, as she needed to maintain a certain physique for Pushpa 2,” says Dheekshith.
Dheekshith: Rashmika treated me as an equal
Despite her current stature, Rashmika remains quite down-to-earth with no starry airs, says the actor, which made acting with her very comfortable. “She told me she’d seen Dia and that she loved Blink. When I then showed her the trailer of KTM, she whole-heartedly shared it on her social media. Most importantly, she treated me like an equal - two actors, playing their respective characters – which is rare. Every now and then you come across actors who keep reminding you of their superiority or seniority, as the case maybe. Rashmika was not like that,” adds Dheekshith.
Speaking with OTTplay earlier, Dheekshith had said that The Girlfriend will be a gamechanger for Rashmika, who has a never-before-seen kind of role in the film. The Girlfriend is slated to be in theatres on March 14.