Liger: When Vijay Deverakonda was amazed by the press meet under the trees and pretty journalists in Bengaluru

In Bengaluru for the pre-release event of his next film, Liger, Vijay Deverakonda was quite impressed with the arrangements made for the media interactions. The stage for the press conference was in an open-air setting, on the lawn of a city hotel. “This is the most chill press conference I have been to. We are sitting outdoors under trees in this weather, no harsh lights. It feels like a holiday press meet; it’s amazing,” said the actor, who also seemed quite surprised at how “pretty”, a lot of the young journalists in the gathering were.

Vijay, who came with a pre-prepared note that he read out in Kannada for the benefit of the crowd, was, of course, reminded that when Sandalwood stars like Kiccha Sudeep and Yash go to promote their films in other states, especially Telugu-speaking ones, they speak the language fluently and that he should do it too when he comes to Karnataka. “I have some time before my next pan-India or pan-south release, so I can definitely learn the language, maybe not fluently. Now, if I can say four sentences, am sure I can do a lot more next time, like 40 sentences; that’ll be my target,” he said.

When asked about why he didn’t dub for himself for the Kannada version, unlike Ram Charan or NTR Jr who did it for RRR, Vijay said, “First, I need to stop acting for 3-4 months at least to learn the language. If I attempt to dub for it right now, I think I will ruin the experience for those who watch the Kannada version. First of all, it is not even straight dialogue delivery, my character has a speech impediment and I stammer, which is even more difficult to do. Tarak anna is multi-lingual, he knows 5-6 languages fluently. I am a bad student who was bad in languages and had failed in hindi. It will take some effort, but I feel bad when I come to Bengaluru, because I am understanding your question, but am not able to respond in Kannada. I would enjoy answering even more if I could do it in Kannada,” he said.

As for the film, which releases on August 25, he added, “Liger is my biggest film. As an actor, it’s my biggest playground, I got the most content to work with. I pushed my limits as an actor and did whatever I could as an actor. And I know it is going to play a big role, like, if you see my career after 15-20 years, I think Liger will be a big moment in it. From the time I got aa script narration, the only thing I said was, ‘Mental… Puri sir, we have to do this film immediately’. You will see madness onscreen. The film is a complete mass entertainer and I am sure people will enjoy the experience of great cinema.”