Turning his focus on Ram Charan, Subhash K Jha looks at the RRR star’s incredible career as the actor celebrates his 40th birthday.
The letter ‘R’ has played an important part in his career. In RRR, his turn as a cop during the British Raj who changes loyalties with a sweeping smooth celerity was one of the film’s highlights. The hard work that went into the performance was evident in every frame.
Ram Charan is not a great actor. But he has worked hard to prove he is more than the legendary Chiranjeevi’s son.
I remember, in 2013, when he made his disastrous debut in Hindi with Zanjeer, Ram was not fluent in Hindi, and the actor took rigorous Hindi classes.
Even in Dhruva, where Ram played a cop(again!), he had to beef up for the part. He built a physique that the film required. Unfortunately, Dhruva came at the time when the country was hit by demonetization. The audience was just not in the mood to spend on movie tickets. So Dhruva suffered.
Transforming himself in front of the audience is a special skill that Ram Charan has nurtured. In his career’s best performance in Rangasthalam, there was something enormously endearing about the Telugu superstar trying to shed his image, to get into the skin of his character the way, say, Uttam Kumar did in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak or Rajesh Khanna in Basu Bhattacharya’s Aavishkar. In Rangashthalam, Ram transforms in front of our eyes. It is almost like watching a magic show where the entire appearance of the actor undergoes a sea-change as we gawk in open-mouthed amazement… Except that, here, Ram is not ostentatious in his mutation. He changes his personality, yes. But in doing so, he makes sure he merges into the rustic, rugged, violent milieu of injustice and inequality where one man plays an evil God. As the partially disabled, docile, shy, and goodhearted Chitti Babu, he is a hero unlike any other: vulnerable and sensitive, prone to defeat if push comes to shove but not embarrassed to be pushed against the wall, willing to take the punch on the chin.
Most of the dramatic conflict is generated in tandem, with Ram sharing screen space unconditionally with his screen brother, played by Adhi Panisetty. When Ram is with his brother, he is tender. When he is with his beloved, he is super-tender. Emotions are not concealed in a false sense of machismo that screen heroes often suffer from. There is no effort to take over the show, to emerge as an unvanquished conquerer. Ram remains almost flawlessly in character: diffident and disarmingly disingenuous, valiant but not fearless. This underplayed heroic dimension to large-screen heroism is the film’s greatest strength.
Ram admitted Rangasthalam was a new beginning for him. The superstar of Andhra, who made his acting debut in 2007, admitted Rangasthalam was a first for him on many levels. He had never played a rural character before. In fact, he had never stayed in a village before, though he had visited his native village with his father(Telugu cinema legend Chiranjeevi) a few times.
Ram also spent considerable time understanding his character’s physical disability. “I spent five months understanding the character’s body language and his hearing disability. Since I had never played a rustic character before, I wanted to ensure I got it right. I didn’t want my portrayal to look superficial. With Rangasthalam, I’ve entered a more realistic phase of acting. I hope to do more such roles in future.”
The process of transformation that began in Rangasthalam has now reached a full fruition in RRR.
Ram has never been daunted by his father’s success. “When I started in Telugu cinema in 2007, I was judged as the great Chiranjeevi’s son. If I cowered, thinking I was being seen only as an heir-apparent and not an individual, I’d have been immobilised. I just did what came naturally to me.”
