Trust Anand Deverakonda to get into the skin of the characters in his films. For his upcoming Middle Class Melodies, a rustic drama, Anand has apparently learnt cooking.
“I play a guy who hails from Guntur. He believes that no one else can make Bombay Chutney as well as him. So he aspires to start a Tiffin centre in Guntur,” reveals Anand, adding that he remodelled his living area as a kitchen during the workshops for the film.
“My living space literally was turned into a kitchen; I practiced making Chutney and Dosas too,” he reveals.
“When I was living in the US (doing my Masters) I occasionally tried my hand at cooking. But I don’t have the patience to put in much effort to cook,” he chuckles.
Anand, who hails from Telangana, also picked up Guntur slang for the part.
“Since the director is also from the same place, things became easy,” he says.
According to him, Middle Class Melodies is not a protagonist-based story, but a collage of different emotions of multiple personalities in a middle-class family.
“The film is a funny take on all the incidents that take place in a middle-class family. I play an emotional guy; my dad vents his anger on me while my mother mediates between us. So we tried to tap all the events that happen in a middle-class setup,” explains Anand.
“Since I belong to the middle class too, I could instantly connect with the story. The middle class is the biggest demographic in our country, and I believe such stories make for a stronger connection. Moreover, it’s been a while since these stories have been told on the silver screen,” he added.
The Dorasani star has been not picking up hero-centric scripts, unlike his elder brother (Vijay Deverakonda).
But he quickly points out, “Even Vijay started off with a film that was script-centric, but later, after he got stardom, he tried to live up to those expectations.” Going further, he says, “I am gravitating towards such middle-class stories because not many young heroes are doing such films. So I feel there is a space for such storytelling.”
Ask him whether he discusses scripts with Vijay, and Anand replies, “I do discuss. Also, I take my father’s inputs because he has an uncanny knack of seeing the underside of the story. However, I am the one who takes the final call.”
