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Telugu actor Vishnu Manchu’s film Kannappa has created a lot of buzz mainly because of its huge star cast. While the film mainly revolves around the titular character played by Vishnu, the association of actors Prabhas, Mohanlal, and Akshay Kumar has added more value and eyeballs to it. And that was the primary goal of Vishnu Manchu. In an exclusive interview with SCREEN, Vishnu, who is over 20 films old, admitted that his market is not as big as these megastars and to make a film of this stature, it required big names to justify the project’s budget and increase anticipation around it. However, despite the reports of the film being made on a budget of over Rs 200 crore, Vishnu never paid a single penny to actors Mohanlal and Prabhas whose fee is in crores.
As Vishnu passionately spoke about his project, a script of which he had wrote about a decade ago, he said he could make his dream come true only because of his father Mohan Babu’s trust, who backed it financially and his two dear friends, Prabhas and Mohanlal.
He told SCREEN, “Two people helped me greatly to make the film what it is today: Mohanlal and Prabhas. Mohanlal is such great superstar, he didn’t really have to do a small role in my film, but due to his love and respect for my father, he agreed to do the role in less than a minute.” He added, “Secondly, Prabhas. He is a great friend of mine. He is not just one of the biggest stars in India but Asia. He too didn’t have to do this role. But after I confessed to him that I would need his presence for a greater reach of my film, he agreed immediately. He didn’t even care to listen to his role in the film.”
While he spoke highly of these two stars, he recalled how they yelled at him for offering them a fees for their work. “Both Prabhas and Mohanlal didn’t take a single penny to do the role. Every time I ask them to quote their fees, they would yell at me. They will say: ‘Itne bade aadmi hogaye ho ki humein paise doge?’ Mohanlal said you grew up around me and today you dare to pay me for my work? Prabhas threatened to kill me.” While Mohanlal and Prabhas didn’t charge any fees, Akshay Kumar charged far less than his standard fees. “He didn’t have to waive off his fees as he is not really my friend and didn’t know me before coming on board.”
According to Vishnu, Mohanlal didn’t just agree to do the role without a remuneration, but was also ready to pay for his own tickets to fly to New Zealand where the film was shot extensively. “Mohanlal sir called me and was like, ‘Vishnu, when do I have to come to New Zealand? I will book my own tickets. You just arrange an accommodation for me and my staff.’ That is how humble they are.”
Vishnu Manchu stayed in New Zealand for eight months with about 800 others, who were part of his dream project.
In the same conversation, Vishnu also opened up about the reason behind trimming the roles of Prabhas and Mohanlal in the highly-anticipated film. Vishnu said it was a “sacrifice” that he had to make.
“We shot Prabhas for 34 minutes, it increased the length of the film. To bring down the length of the film, we trimmed six minutes from his sequence. We have a fight sequence together, that was trimmed a bit. We even had to trim about 7 minutes from Mohanlal’s sequence. He now has only 15 minutes scene in the film. This is all sacrifice that we did, only to lessen the length of the film. We didn’t have an option.”
While Vishnu admitted that he reached these superstars as well as Akshay Kumar to increase the reach of his film to a pan-India level, he didn’t take them for granted.
He confessed, “Because of my father’s legacy I was able to cast most of the actors that I have today because they were all just a phone call away. But, the reality is none of these actors need to do a cameo at this point in their career. They carry a legacy of their own. So when I cast these actors, I made sure all of their roles and characters have depth and meaning.”
“For Prabhas especially, this role is going to be a milestone in his career as an actor. He has acted very well. I am glad he is there in the film because even though he is a good friend, I have to respect his stature as a superstar today. I don’t want people to come out and say ‘Why did Prabhas do this role’, I made sure his role has a value to it.”
Vishnu Manchu’s mythological drama is all set to release in theatres on June 27.
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