“I wish I could tell Puneeth Rajkumar sir how grateful I was for his gesture,” says Gargi actor Sai Pallavi

Sai Pallavi is currently basking in all the love and adoration she’s receiving from the Kannada audience as her film Gargi makes its way to cinema halls on July 15. The Tamil original is releasing in multiple languages across the country including Kannada, with the main highlight being Sai Pallavi lending her own voice for each dubbed version. The Virata Parvam actress was in Bengaluru to promote Gargi and spoke to several media entities about her trysts with the city, the intense dubbing process, and her association with the Kannada film industry.

While speaking News First Kannada, Sai Pallavi was asked about forging friendships with Kannada actors to which she replied: “I think the first person I met from the industry was Puneeth Rajkumar sir. This was during the Filmfare Awards and I had just won an award from Premam, my debut film. Since I was new to the acting world, I did not know anyone from the Kannada Film Industry but Puneeth sir voluntarily spotted me at the show and said ‘I really loved your work and I can’t wait for us to work together on a film’. I suppose that was my first interaction with someone from Kannada cinema but I hadn’t revealed anything about this brief encounter.

But once I learned of his demise, I felt really bad about not being able to meet him before the tragic incident. Because I remember back then thinking about his humility and how he came up to me to give me a compliment – he is a superstar but still made sure he spoke to a debutant actor so as to encourage me to continue doing credible work. I wish I could tell him how grateful I was for his words and that gesture,” said Sai Pallavi in the interview.

Sai Pallavi’s Gargi is being presented in Kannada by Rakshit Shetty who recently revealed that he was “touched and moved” by the subject matter of Gargi. Interestingly, the director of Gargi, Gautham Ramachandran, had remade Rakshit’s Ulidavaru Kandanthe in Tamil as Richie which starrer Nivin Pauly.