Edited excerpts below
Were you convinced with the climax of Ye Maaya Chesave after the movie became a success at the box office or are you still thinking it should have had the original climax…
I am still hoping it would have been the other climax.
A Telugu movie you’d watch on any given day?
There are a lot of films but these are all films that came out in the 80s—Sagara Sangamam (1983), Swati Mutyam (1986), Sankarabharanam (1980), and Ram Gopal Verma sir’s Satya (1998).
How does your day look like when your movie works at the box office and when it doesn’t?
If the movie doesn’t work, I go into a shell. It bothers me only because you’ve lived with something and liked it, and when they tell you it’s not working, it’s difficult to get out of that immediately. I go into a sort of a shell, and I feel bad, but not like Nilambari in Padayappa (smiles).
My celebration is not very intense and loud. It’s very quiet, I’d probably listen to slightly louder music and drive around, meet the team, and thank them. There is a lot of thanksgiving and I think it’s very important. Celebration is always meeting the team and saying thanks to them.
One thing that you learned about yourself recently?
This film (Venthu Thaninthathu Kaadu) made me think, “wow do I have this in me?” I think I have matured as a filmmaker. The way I handled the film, the shots, trying to visualise it, the way the single shot sequences were staged, and a lot of other stagings in the film — I really discovered myself again through this film.