Rana Daggubati recounts his experience as a newbie on the sets of Telugu film Leader and Bollywood debut Dum Maaro Dum

ACTOR RANA DAGGUBATI RECOUNTS HIS TIME AS A NEWBIE
FILM LEADER (2010), DUM MAARO DUM (2011)
LOCATION HYDERABAD, GOA

I still remember the first day I walked on to a film set as an actor for my Telugu debut, Leader. On the first day itself, I had scenes with Suhasini Maniratnam, who was playing my mother in the film. Sekhar Kammula, my director, and his ADs, all chilled-out people, were a bit overwhelmed since the scale of this film was slightly big. Eventually, Suhasiniji was the one who made me comfortable, sitting with me, rehearsing the scene and chatting about different things to familiarise me with my surroundings. I was stunned to see a veteran actress like her sit down and chat with me.

Coincidentally, my first shot was of the two of us sitting together after my father’s death in the film. She gives me his diary, which has a list of all that he wanted to do in his life. It felt somewhat surreal, but I was happy to face the camera.

Rohan’s (Sippy, director) wife Roopa had got some stills of mine from Leader through a friend from the sets. They were casting for Dum Maaro Dum at the time and Rohan called me to ask if I wanted to audition. I was game. He sent the script over and I loved it. All this happened around the initially scheduled release of Leader, a political film. At that time, there was a lot of political disturbance in Andhra Pradesh, with the erstwhile Chief Minister (YS Rajasekhara Reddy) having just passed away. Our film was getting pushed repeatedly. So, when I got Rohan’s call, I took some rushes from Leader along, with the editor’s approval. Rohan liked them and told me that they would be shooting in Goa for three-four months. And I was on board.

Being from Hyderabad, I knew and spoke Hindi, but I never thought I would be speaking it in a film so soon. Luckily, since I was a Goan in the film, my accent didn’t matter. But I did undergo diction training in Hindi and guitar classes, biking lessons. I was in Mumbai for around two months for the prep before the film rolled.


Dum Maaro Dum was set in Goa, with just Prateik (Babbar) and me there along with Rohan during the first week of the shoot. I’d been hanging out with them for a while during the training and since we were around the same age, it turned out to be the best film shoot of my life. For my first shot, it was just Prateik and me enjoying ourselves at a carnival. And for the first five days, it was only that, after which the main work started.

There was a sense of accomplishment after doing two films in two years, in two different film industries. But the euphoria faded away quickly, as my next films in both languages tanked the year after. In my first three years in the industry, I had two hits and two flops. That was a reality check!

—As told to Akash Bhatnagar