Rakshit Shetty: Studies always took a backseat at school

Hero of Kirik Party and Avane Srimannarayana and director of cult classic Ulidavaru Kandante recalls how his childhood love of dressing up and acting eventually led him to cinema

All through his school and college days, Rakshit Shetty wanted to be an actor. And he had support at home not just from his parents and siblings, one of who bought film magazines and told him stories from it, but also from an uncle.

Rakshit got noticed for his role in ‘Simple Agi Ondh Love Story’ (2013), and graduated to direction with the neo-noir crime drama ‘Ulidavaru Kandante’ (2014). UK, as the latter film is abbreviated, became a talking point in Kannada cinema and beyond.

Rakshit’s biggest commercial hit yet is ‘Kirik Party’ (2016), which was remade in Telugu. He was more recently seen in the curry Western ‘Avane Srimannarayana’.

Metrolife finds more about him.

The family connect

Rakshit was born in Udupi to Shridhar Shetty, civil contractor, and Ranjini Shetty.

He grew up in an extended family and used to visit his paternal and maternal grandmothers frequently, as they lived close by. “My siblings and I used to walk to their houses. The journey was picturesque. We would pick berries on the way. Festivals were a treat, and summer vacations meant the entire family from across the country would come together,” he recalls.

He remembers being ‘a mischievous child’. Rakshit was closer to his sister Rashmith than to his elder brother Ranjith, who moved to Australia.

‘Best days of our lives’

Rakshit with his friends Susheel, Divyant,
Sandeep, and Shashir, during PU college days.

Rakshit attended Mukunda Kripa School in Udupi till his seventh standard. “My school was next to a temple. We would watch elephants being taken for baths by their mahouts,” he recalls.

Culture was a huge part of his schooling. “Our teachers would write plays and make us participate in competitions. I started doing theatre when I was in my third standard. My sister was three years senior to me at school, and any younger roles in the plays she was in would be given to me,” he says.

Rakshit would act in two or three plays every year. “Studies always took a backseat. We used to wait for the rehearsals,” he says.

The acting bug

Rakshit always dreamt of becoming an actor. “My brother would get film magazines. He would tell me stories about how actors got to wear several outfits during a song sequence and got to take them all home,” he says. As a child, Rakshit loved dressing up, and the idea of taking home an entire wardrobe appealed to him.

He also loved writing plays, directing them and making his friends act in them. Rakshit’s maternal uncle Prakash was into theatre and wanted to get into the movies. “My mother and he would make me participate in fancy dress and other competitions in Udupi and Mangaluru. As a kid, I won several trophies,” he says.

Rakshit moved to an English-medium high school and made new friends. “My friends and I continued theatre as a group,” he says.

In his PU course at MGM College, Kunjibettu, Udupi, he met more people. “Maths and physics were the only subjects I liked. Those days were less about studies and more about fun and bunking classes,” he says.

Kirik Party: Real to reel

Rakshit pursued an electronics and communication engineering course from NMAM Institute of Technology College, Nitte, Udupi. His days there were ‘enjoyable and unforgettable.’

“The first few days, I used to be a day scholar, but within three months of the course, I moved to the hostel. This is when the real fun began. My most favourite time there was the evening, when the entire batch would sit in the corridor and sing and play instruments; I used to sing,” he recalls. Moments like these inspired the script of ‘Kirik Party’. “I got into a lot of trouble too, but since I was the batch representative during my first year, I also enjoyed privileges other students didn’t,” he says.

Pursuing a ghost

Rakshit and friends loved daring adventures. “We heard some rumours about a ghost in the hills, and we went looking for an experience at night,” he recalls.

Cinema is Rakshit's world. He has explored the actor,
scriptwriter and director in himself and wants to keep exploring more.

In 2006, after college, he started hunting for a job in Bengaluru, and got one soon enough. “I worked for almost two years in an IT company. My work would finish in three hours every day, after which I used to watch films and read about filmmaking,” he says.

Making short films and interacting with filmmakers and theatre people became a passion. He landed a role in a feature film but it didn’t take off.

First feature film

“I made my debut with Aravind Kaushik’s film ‘Nam Areaal Ond Dina’, and continued doing short films and theatre. I worked in his next film ‘Tughlak’ too. I learnt a lot on the sets, and it’s during the making of the latter film that I met Rishab Shetty,” he says.

Rakshit and Rishab, both from coastal Karnataka and nursing stardom dreams, became close friends. “At one point, our failures matched and we had the same dreams,” he says.

They joined hands for the short film ‘Confessions of a Dustbin’ in 2012, the idea of making which was to convince producers about Rakshit’s directorial abilities.

Rakshit turned writer and director with ‘Ulidavaru Kandante’. “I had started writing the story a while ago. I remember how memorable the first day and the last day of the shoot were. Those were life-changing moments, the shoot was stress-filled and I had to finish shooting in 70 days,” he says.

Today and ahead...

Rakshit is inspired by Kannada actors like Rajkumar and Anant Nag, and directors like Puttanna Kanagal and Shankar Nag.

Today, he and Paramvah Studios, the production house he has co-founded, have come a long way. “We aim to encourage writers as they are the foundation for any film,” he says. “I like exploring and want to continue trying out new things,” he sums up.

Lockdown life

Rakshit is writing again. “In the last couple of years, I would wonder if I could write something that would appeal to the current audience. The lockdown has forced me to be in my world and write again,” he says.