‘My storytelling inherently has a kind of fantasy,’ says RRR director SS Rajamouli

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that 2022 belonged to Indian filmmaker SS Rajamouli. His film RRR (Rise Roar Revolt), a lavishly mounted period epic action drama, hit theatres on March 24 and still continued to dominate headlines for one reason or the other.

The film features Jr. NTR and Ram Charan in lead roles, while Bollywood stars Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn play pivotal cameos. After setting the box office on fire upon its release in theatres, the film landed on Netflix and drew applause from a number of prominent artists from Hollywood.

In his recent interview, Rajamouli says that he likes to make films that he likes to watch. “I want my audience to feel the film, rather than think the film,” he tells Inverse. “I like to make the movies that I like to watch.”

Calling crafting powerful imagery a two-step process, the celebrated filmmaker says that the first part is passive but imaginative, and it has a lot to do with how he absorbs the world around him. “On one hand, the love for striking visuals is a constant process, whether visuals that I come across, that I see, that pop up in my mind,” he says. “That happens irrespective of whether I'm making a film or writing a story. I'll be thinking about how that visual can come into being, what kind of emotion can be associated with that visual, or even if I see a nice, spectacular location, I'll be immediately thinking what kind of emotion can be exploited. So that's one part of my mind.”

The filmmaker further adds that though he leads his actual life in reality, he loves telling stories loaded with fantasy. “Reality is how I lead my actual life. Filmmaking is my profession. So, I tend not to mix both of them. Usually, I don't make reality. My storytelling inherently has a kind of fantasy. Currently, it has a kind of fairy tale setting and characters, but with stronger emotions.”

Rajamouli has now joined forces with Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu for his next directorial venture. Talking about the same, he had previously said in an interview, “It is going to be an action-adventure and will be inspired by the Indiana Jones series because I have always liked those films.”

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