I am far from being a perfectionist, says filmmaker SS Rajamouli

PTI, May 7, 2022, 1:15 PM IST

Filmmaker SS Rajamouli says he strives to achieve perfectionism in his films, even though he knows that nothing can ever be perfect in life.

Rajamouli, who recently delivered yet another blockbuster with his period epic movie ”RRR”, said he has certain shortcomings as a director which he often encounters during the shooting of a movie.

”People term me as a perfectionist because I take so much time (to make a film) but I am far from it. I would like everything to be perfect. You can get closer to perfect but nothing can ever be perfect,” Rajamouli said.

The director was speaking at a session on Friday with veteran actor Anupam Kher during the Times Network Leadership Summit, hosted at the ongoing Goa Fest 2022.

Rajamouli, who has hits like ”Magadheera”, ”Eega” and two ”Baahubali” movies to his credits, recalled how he got his first break into filmmaking with 2001 Telugu movie “Student No 1”.

He said that since he hadn’t worked as an assistant director on any film, his shortcoming is in “basic shot making”.

”For example, when I made my first film ‘Student No 1’, I did not know how to use a crane. Likewise, I still don’t know what shot exactly gives me what I need,” Rajamouli added.

The director said that there are so many things during shooting that leaves him indecisive.

”There are thousands of options that go through my mind, I don’t know which is the right thing to do,” he said, adding that there are some filmmakers who are very clear and confident about what they want.

When asked about how he deals with the actors in his movies, Rajamouli said that during his initial days of career, he used to have a clear cut idea of how an actor should perform a particular emotion.

”I was very adamant on how they should sit, how they should perform. Slowly I realised that all my actors are looking the same. All my actors were imitating what I was doing.

”Then I thought, why do I go to a particular actor? (It is) because he has a specific ability. Then I started hammering emotion into the actor. Now we have started workshops before the shooting,” Rajamouli said. The filmmaker’s latest movie ”RRR” was released countrywide in March this year in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Hindi.

A pre-Independence fictional story, the big-budget spectacle drama featured Ram Charan and N T Rama Rao Jr as real-life Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, respectively.