Maa Inti Bangaaram marks the third collaboration between Raj Nidimoru and Samantha Ruth Prabhu after The Family Man 2 and Citadel: Honey Bunny. The Telugu film, which marks Samantha’s big screen return
after three years, has minted Rs 23.10 crore India nett in its opening weekend. Globally, it has crossed the Rs 40 crore mark, emerging as a big hit.
For the unversed, Raj serves as the story and screenplay writer of Maa Inti Bangaaram with Samantha also donning the hat of the producer. Now, speaking exclusively to News18, Raj heaps praises on his wife’s meteoric rise and says, “She’s a hungry and self-made actor. I haven’t seen her early works but I know the adulation she got and the stardom she has enjoyed over many years.”
Indian cinema, as a whole, isn’t particularly kind to its women actors, sometimes relegating them to the periphery after they hit a certain age. Navigating this ageist nature of showbiz is something Raj and Samantha often talk about. “We’re sadly aware of the shelf-life for actors across industries. We discuss quite a few of these things,” he remarks.
“But we also realise that beyond a point, it’s your acting skills that keeps an actor alive for longer. She’s constantly aware and wanting to change, improve and find new ways of acting out the scenes,” he adds. What he particularly admires about her is her silent homework and prep which she keeps hidden even from him.
“Even on this set when she did a take and wasn’t happy sure it, we talked about it to see how else we can crack it. But most of the times, she would’ve done enough mental homework, which she doesn’t talk about. She brings it forth in her first take itself. That’s why, I usually always take the first take of hers because there’s some kind of a mental preparation to do something different,” he says.
The last few years brought about some change in Samantha, believes Raj. Talking about it, he shares, “There are a very few actors who are exciting to watch in certain scenes. That’s something she has honed in herself, especially in the last couple of years. When we sit on the monitor, she used to look at herself and say, ‘I haven’t seen this come out before.'”
But where there creative conflicts apart from ‘some inside jokes’ on the sets of Maa Inti Bangaaram? “I’m creating it and putting it together, so I win the auguments (laughs). But creative conflict is very little. I don’t even remember anything. We’re in great sync. If somebody is involved right from the inception, you don’t really have creative conflicts. We were both on the same track,” Raj tells us.
On related note, Raj is currently working on an action-fantasy series titled Rakt Brāhmand: The Bloody Kingdom starring Samantha, Aditya Roy Kapur, Ali Fazal and Wamiqa Gabbi. Reportedly, Samantha is in her first trimester and the couple is expecting a child in December this year.
