alluboyskottoor: Who is the real Allu Arjun?

He leads many lives both onscreen and off the screen. Over the past few years, he has grown up as an actor and has entered into a different zone as far as his career goes. However, he’s not the same person when he’s not acting. Hemanth Kumar gets talking to allu arjun a lot about his career, relationships and love...

“Ican’s relate to any of my characters that I have done so far. I am a very different person in real life,” Allu Arjun admits. We had posed a question to understand the psyche of an actor who has played a flamboyant role in Desamudhuru with as much panache as his uber cool avatar as Arya. And when you have a flirtatious image onscreen, it gets all the more complicated when you drop the bomb and decide to get married. While we aren’t sure how many of his fans were left heartbroken when he got engaged in November, 2010, what we know for sure is that he’s stepping into an exciting phase of his life both onscreen and off the screen.

He stares at the barren landscape zooming past as his car cruises on the outer ring road in Hyderabad. It’s a perfect setting to get talking to an actor whose life has undergone a massive transformation since his debut in K Raghavendra Rao’s Gangotri back in 2003. “Everything changes over a period of time, especially when you are an actor. Your freedom changes, the way you think changes, your priorities change and your financial equation changes. Even emotionally you go through some change,” he replies when we ask him if he has changed as a person in the past few years. Everything related to him is flamboyant in some way or the other. Right from his clothes to how he laughs when you quiz him about stuff like love and his fiancé Sneha Reddy. “I am very flamboyant, happy-go-lucky guy in real life. But the backdrop of the characters doesn’t reflect my personal life. I was brought up in different cities and in cosmopolitan culture and my films aren’t based on that. I play more of massy characters,” he laughs while putting our ‘who’s the real you’ question into proper perspective. But it doesn’t stop him being associated with some of the characters he has played in his films. “When I trouble anyone especially women, be it my mom, aunt or even my fiancé they would say that I have a wild streak in me which I would have depicted in some of my films,” he grins nonchalantly.

In his next film, Badrinath, he’s playing yet another massy role. “Lot of people think that’s a period film…it’s not. Badrinath is set in contemporary times with a temple backdrop and I play an Indian samurai,” he reveals. An Indian samurai? Do people connect with that? “Of course they do. If you see our recent trends, almost eight out of the top ten action films have swords & knives in them. Swords work better than guns.” Not many know that Chinni Krishna (writer) had narrated this story to him soon after Arya’s release. So, why was it delayed for so long? “It’s always been Chinni Krishna’s story, but we were waiting for the right director to take up the project. And now that V V Vinayak is directing it, everything has fallen into place.” Before the film got rolling, he went to Vietnam and got trained in a new form of martial arts to get the body language right for his role. And Badrinath is going to be the second film with V V Vinayak for him after Bunny. “I have known Vinayak for a very long time; he’s more like a family member to me. Working with him is sheer pleasure and he makes every actor feel comfortable. The best part is that he has a lot of clarity of what he wants and what he’s doing,” he says. While it’s his first film with Tamannaah, he confides that he knew that he would work with her someday or the other. “We had known each other earlier and even shot for Southscope and wanted to work together for quite some time. We have been missing out on almost 1-2 projects; luckily everything fell into place now. I think you have to wait to get the best and she’s an extremely dedicated professional,” he smiles.

2010 was a mixed bag at box-office for Allu Arjun. Two of his films, Varudu and Vedam had hit the marquee and met contrasting results. While Varudu didn’t meet the expectations, Vedam turned out to be a critically acclaimed film. The Tamil remake, Vaanam is soon in the offing and recently, we found out that Vedam was included in the ‘Best Movies of 2010 That You Probably Haven’t Heard Of’ list of a popular international film website slashfilm.com. What prompted him to take up Vedam? “It was just to break the norms that Telugu commercial heroes don’t do anything experimental. Somebody had to start from somewhere.” Isn’t there a danger that people might not accept you? “The danger is always there. See...I always believe in this. There are good experiments and bad experiments. Try to be intelligent and do a good experiment.” And he did do these so called experiments in his own way. Be it building a six-pack in Desamudhuru or slick dance moves in Arya-2, he has earned his tag of being called the ‘Stylish star’ in Telugu cinema. “In Arya-2, there were lots of contemporary dances, stylish and very innovative. They were fantastic beyond any doubt. Generally, I’m shy to talk about my own work, but when it comes to Arya-2, I can see all the efforts on screen. On the other hand, Vedam is a film which an actor of my league would never do. Considering the films that I normally do, it was a very different film for me.”

What about failures? Do they bother him? “Of course, they do. Generally, when a film fails, it’s always a blame game. But if there’s a failure, I consider myself to be 100% the reason. I may not have done anything wrong, but I do take up the major responsibility if a film fails. And when it’s a success, it’s everyone’s success.” Why this sense of guilt? “It’s not guilt. I feel more responsible because I okayed that subject…it was my call. It might turn out to be something else than what I thought it would be, but I never take my hands out of what I’m part of.” Perhaps this sense of responsibility comes from the fact that his father happens to be Allu Aravind, one of the biggest producers in Telugu cinema. Is there a struggle to find good projects or do celeb kids have it easy, we quiz him? “There is always a struggle. Along with advantages there are disadvantages to it. There are so many expectations that you better keep up to it. It goes both ways. You can’t just wash your hands out of a film; you have to be involved as a project, right from finance, creative content. You are responsible for everything. A lot of people come to the theatre irrespective of the onscreen combination. An actor is a brand himself. When people trust that brand, somewhere you have a responsibility towards them and you have to handle that pressure.” Is there a sense of insecurity somewhere buried under this pressure of having to be at the top? “In a way there is no competition, since there is space for all of us. But then, we’re competing – because we’re all aiming for the audience’s wallet. Your success is directly proportionate to your effort and caliber. Everybody gets what he deserves,” he concludes.

In 2010, his fans were rejoicing that Allu Arjun and his cousin Ram Charan Tej would soon act in a film tentatively titled Charanarjun. Is the film soon in the offing? “No…no. We are definitely going to act in a movie together. It may take three years or five years, we don’t know yet. It’s just that we thought it would be a nice title when we do the film and hence we registered it.” Ah! We will have to wait for a long time for this film. But what’s just around the corner is his wedding. His decision to get engaged surprised quite a few people. Maybe it’s his flirtatious image. “The flirtatious image exists only because the (corresponding) onscreen image is so strong. But I am a very different person in real life. For people it’s actually a shock. For people who are close to me, it’s not.” We heard that there was a love story involved too? “It’s complicated!” he laughs out loud. “Well, it’s neither a complete love story nor an arranged marriage. You could call it more of an arranged marriage, just that we knew each other before,” he confesses. And we also heard that he’s a completely different person when he’s with his girl. Is that true? “Not really. With your friends you are very jovial and people are usually soft and coy when it comes to women. But I am loud on that front too. I’m open about it,” he blushes. When we asked him if Sneha knows about his girlfriends in the past, he says, “Ahh…let’s not dig into the past. But then, I have kept everything transparent because I wanted to start my relationship on a fresh note. She knows about them.” Trust, they say, is an essential thing to have. The couple is going to enter the wedlock on March 6, 2011. Quiz him about how he’s preparing for the D-Day, he replies, “I am consulting every force including Google.” Of course, he meant his friends, family and relatives.

Well, what do we say? Some love stories have a happy ending. We ask him about what love means to him, now that he’s all set to enter wedlock. ”My perspective about love has always remained the same. Love is unconditional. But then, what would you ask me (more) about love? I am a married man. Well, almost!” he guffaws.

ALLU ARJUN TURNS LOVE GURU

Most Romantic moment
My ring ceremony

Biggest surprise
I used to tell my fiance(Sneha Reddy) that she’s incapable of surprising me. And one day, she somehow found out my shooting spot with the help of my friends and travelled all the way for two hours to meet me and our meeting lasted for less than ten minutes.

What would you do to pacify when a girl’s angry?
The only thing which comes to your rescue is your wit.

How to woo a girl?
Give her a bunch of flowers. Always works.

One thing you should never do when you are with your girl?
Never be arrogant. It’s a big turn off.

What’s the biggest turn on in a woman?
It’s the way they smell, the fragrance (chuckles).

I Love... Writing a diary. I have 10 diaries which I have written over the past 10 years.Collecting Fridge Magnets as souvenirs. I collect one from every country I visit and there’s a wall full of these fridge magnets. Shoes. I have a whole cupboard filled with shoes.