Kannada actor Dhananjaya, who grew up on the stage and later worked with noted theatre artist Mime Ramesh, enjoys experimenting with different characters.
Acting is a passion for this engineer who quit Infosys to start a career in cinema. He won the Siima award for his debut film Director’s Special.
Tagaru, directed by Duniya Suri, is a new experiment where he plays the villain, Daali — a gangster and womaniser.
Dhananjaya spoke to Gulf News tabloid! about the role.
Tagaru triumphs
“The response to Daali has been overwhelming. I could not believe it when people whistled every time Daali appeared onscreen. On social media, there has been a flood of messages. One fan from Mysore got herself tattooed with ‘Daali’ and sent me her image. Another fan has Daali written on his car. I presumed that Tagaru will be an average action drama but it went beyond that.”
Being the baddie
“Daali was quite a challenge mentally. Suri prepared me well. Daali is born out of his imagination. We discussed in detail about the character and he let me improvise it on the sets. There is a bad side in all of us. I think I was successful in bringing out the hidden evil in me.”
Working with Shiva Rajkumar
“It was a great opportunity working with Shiva anna [brother]. He believes that every character in the story is important and gives space to his co-actors.”
Impact of characters
“The characters stay with you. It took some time to shake off the hangover of Allama. I was disturbed after shooting was done. Only a break with my parents helped me. Daali made me lose my temper on two occasions. For one who never gets into quarrels this was a revelation. I realised then that it was not me but Daali coming into the foreground.”
Experiments with roles
“Every role is about learning and unlearning. It keeps me alive. After building a six pack to play a boxer in Boxer I turned to yoga for my role in Allama.’ There was no reference to this character. To understand Allama better, I read about him and even learnt to play the mridangam [percussion instrument] for few scenes. In Yajamana, my next directed by Pon Kumaran, I play a character with dark shades opposite Darshan who is the lead.”
