I would have been nowhere without films: Bellamkonda Sreenivas

Bellamkonda Sreenivas is as honest as one can get. The 29-year-old-actor says that films are the only thing he knows. “I only understand films. I don’t know what I will be without cinema. I would have been lost. I would have been nowhere. My father was into films and he lost a lot of money there. I had no option but to get into movies and be an actor. People can call it nepotism, but I did not know anything else,” says Sreenivas candidly.

The Rakshasudu and Sakshyam actor is quick to admit that he has so many butterflies in his stomach given that Chatrapathi is his debut film. “For starters I do not know the language very well. But I didn’t let that deter me. I learnt the dialogues by rote and impressed my co-actor Nushrratt Bharuccha,” he shares. “I am very passionate about my films and I want to do the best I can in my field. I don’t want anyone to say that I didn’t try hard enough,” adds Sreenivas about the movie directed by VV Vinayak.

Sreenivas says director Boyapati Srinu, who made Jatya Janaki Nayaka with him in the lead, and others like him, helped him reach where he has. “No one wanted to invest so much money on a film with a newcomer like me in his third film. But he (Srinu) fought for me and the film and got the money sanctioned for a film as big as that,” says the actor, who is now stopped on the road when he is promoting his film for people to take selfies.

“My films have reached people through TV and YouTube. Dubbed movies have a huge market in the north and it is humbling to know that people know you and your work,” he shares.

Sreenivas is not really perturbed that the film is a remake of the original Chatrapathi starring Prabhas. “That film was made 18 years ago. The Hrithik Roshan film Agneepath did well because the original film starring Amitabh Bachchan was made two decades earlier. Obviously, we have made a few changes to ensure that everything is up to date,” he adds.

Chatrapathi was to have been released much earlier, but it was delayed. “It’s a good thing, because at that time there was no RRR, Pushpa or KGF. And now suddenly there is a craze to release south Indian films in Hindi and south Indian stars to act in Hindi films. And here I am,” he says, pretty stoked at his luck and timing.