'How can I be better than Ram Gopal Varma?'

Candid Talk

J D Chakravarthy has an intense and serious image but meet him once and you’ll realise that he is nothing like his famous character, Satya.

“Many people feel disappointed when they meet me because they expect me to be a very quiet and serious guy like my character in Satya. I can’t help it if I get roles which hardly have any dialogues,” says Chakravarthy, who was in the City shooting for his first Kannada film Kontract.

Having done his share of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, one wonders what took him this long to come into Kannada films.

Though he was offered roles before, nothing really materialised. What made him agree this time was Sameer, the director.

“There are two kinds of people one can never say no to. One is your parents and the other is your kid. In this case, my parent is Ram Gopal Varma and my kid is my assistant director Sameer. When he came to me with this script, I simply couldn’t say no to him,” he explains.

His outright honesty comes out when he openly says that Kontract has nothing ‘different’ about it.

“Being ‘different’ has been done to death,” he says while adding, “But the treatment and the way Sameer is planning to present this simple story will bowl people away.”

The film also stars Bollywood actress Minissha Lamba and Action King Arjun Sarja.

Working with a stalwart like Arjun, says Chakravarthy, is more  of a pressure than a pleasure. 

“Not many people know this, but I was a kid when I first acted with Arjun. And nothing has changed since then, he treats me like a kid even now,” he says.

Having been both in front and behind the camera, the highlight of Chakravarthy’s career was when his story from Darna Zaroori Hain gained a lot of recognition.

“It’s one thing being directed by Ram Gopal Varma and another to direct with him on the side. After the film released, many people said that my story was the best. While I felt really nice, I also wondered how I can be better than Ram Gopal Varma. That for me was the best moment of my career,” he signs off.