Jagapathi Babu reveals Ram Gopal Varma caused a fight between him and Urmila Matondkar: ‘He told her I hate her’

“She questioned me about it. I don’t know why he did it. I got fed up with all the questions. What he ultimately did was, ‘I won’t shoot until you say, ‘I like Urmila.’ How is this fair?,” the actor said, adding, “After that, I was done. I waited for a while. I said, ‘Okay Ramu, listen to me. I hate Urmila. I hate all the people you like. I hate Ram Gopal Varma. Do what you want to do.’ He said, ‘I like this.’ How do I deal with this man?”

But Jagapathi Babu clarified it wasn’t intimidating for him at all to work with Ram Gopal Varma after watching his 1989 seminal Telugu crime thriller Siva. “It was the most chill work (on the sets of Gayam). Because he knows what he wants. He used to be satisfied with one take. I insisted on another take, but he said that was fine. There’s no reason to be intimated. No way a good director can be intimidating. He is the coolest director I’ve worked with. He finishes all the shots super fast,” pointed out Jagapathi.

The actor added that if at all, he has only gratitude for Varma for casting him in Gaayam despite there being pressure on the filmmaker to cast more established stars like his Siva collaborator Nagarjuna and Venkatesh in the role. Jagapathi claimed since he had a few flops before that, Gaayam became the film that established him as a bankable leading man.

“I know there were a lot of people pressurizing you to take some other hero. Also, financially, they said the budget won’t work for me. They said I didn’t have a huge market. They said another hero could bring in more business. Even when they pressured you, you stuck to me. You were sure I was the right person for it,” recalled Jagapathi.

Also Read — Ram Gopal Varma told Sandeep Reddy Vanga he didn’t connect with father-son story, shoe-licking scene in Animal: ‘Was fed up of Anil Kapoor’

Jagapthi Babu also thanked Ram Gopal Varma for allowing him to lend his own voice to his character in Gaayam for the very first time. “Right now, I’m feeling very shocked. It’s because many people say that even now, your biggest asset is your voice. In those days, people didn’t like your voice. It was one of the biggest mysteries for me or anyone. Your voice had bass. It suited your personality and height. Very few people have such a baritone voice. Amitabh Bachchan, Raza Murad, your voice fell in the range of that,” said Varma.