'I really felt like a goddess'

Sandalwood star Ramya is buoyed by twin joys. As a brand ambassador for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), she is excited that the team has bounced back into the tournament.

She is just as thrilled about her role as Indra’s daughter, Indraja, in Katari Veera Surasundarangi, where she has fulfilled yet another dream of hers — that of playing a mythological character.

Ramya points out that she was told by a lot of people that it wasn’t easy to play such a character but she took that as a challenge. “During the shoot, I was up by four in the morning, getting my hair and make-up done and rehearsing my dialogues that are in Sanskrit. I have never really worked this hard on any other project. I wanted to give this character my best shot,” she tells Metrolife.

Ramya plays a mortal being in the film. She observes that after she wore her costume, jewellery and a heavy head gear, that weighed nothing less than eight to ten kgs, she felt quite ethereal. “I felt like a goddess. I don’t know if gods and goddesses have emotions but my character has a lot of emotions. Indraja sacrifices everything for the man she loves (played by Upendra). Once you dress up like a goddess, you tend to walk, talk, feel and even behave like one,” she explains. “In mythological movies, the sets and the costumes go a long way in improving your performance,” she says.

Ramya had to stick to a disciplined regime during the shoot. “I hardly got time to eat. But I was asked to maintain my weight because the director wanted a very voluptuous looking goddess, not a skinny one,” she adds.

She had people calling her up and complimenting her new look, “So far, the feedback has been good. People dub it as quite different from what I’ve done before. I think the opulent grandeur has come out really well through the 3D effect,” opines Ramya.

Talking about her co-stars Ambarish and Upendra, Ramya says , “When Ambarish sir came dressed as Yama, we all were absolutely dumbstruck. He did not have to put any extra effort into the character. There’s so much strength in his voice and he gets it all right in the first take itself,” she says. “Upendra is thorough in every aspect of film-making and off-screen he really leaves you in splits with his witty ways,” she beams.