This Mangalore lad’s latest film Relax Satya has received impressive feedback from critics and audiences and he understandably, can’t stop beaming. Actor Prabhu Mundkur is soaking in the appreciation he’s been garnering for his performance in his first film as solo lead. In a tete-e-tete with us, the artiste gets talking about his Sandalwood journey and more…
“The response has been amazing. This being my debut as solo lead, I was skeptical about how the critics and audiences would react. But I think people could easily digest Satya. I’ve been meeting people and they’ve all loved the character,” smiles Prabhu who calls the role a rather challenging one. “Satya is a character with multiple thoughts in his head.
There’s a lot of frustration and different emotions happening at the same time. As a normal person, you don’t go through so many mood swings – you’re either numb or feel one particular emotion for a long duration. But Sathya’s emotions keep flipping. So, it was tough to play an abnormal character,” states Prabhu.
The talented actor now has three films ready for release – Maya Kannadi, Mysore Diaries and Ranchi, with the last one being based on a true story that happened in 2009. For someone who comes from a background where young men are expected to tread the traditional engineer or doctor route, how did he break that mold? “In order to break it, you first need to know what you want to do. I was clear about coming into films, but if you don’t have any background, it’s very difficult. Initially, I thought modelling might help me. But I didn’t like it. Then I took to daily soaps, but that didn’t work either. I used to attend a lot of auditions – before getting into films, I failed in about 50 TV auditions,” says the perseverant actor, who then auditioned for Urvi and got chosen for the film. Post that he did Double Engine which released in 2018, and then acted in D/O Parvathamma.
How did his family react to his movie choices? “For any artiste, family is the first critic. While they liked the previous films too, with Relax Satya, they were wowed. I’m happy I’ve satisfied them the most. I hail from Mangalore, where Kannada films don’t work that well. But with my movie, I’ve been seeing housefull shows. What else does an actor need?” he says.
As for his future movie choices, Prabhu maintains that he’d okay with doing any role as he wants to explore every spectrum of acting. “I’ve been offered the Telugu remake of Relax Satya, but I’m not sure whether I can better my current performance and for a remake, your performance needs to be better!” he states.
