Rashmika Mandanna thought she was ‘dancing on Allu Arjun’ after she watched Peelings rehearsal video: ‘I thought what is going on?’

Rashmika further said it was not an easy decision to do the song but since she did not want to limit herself, she decided to let her guard down. “I am someone who has a phobia of being lifted, I wasn’t very comfortable with people lifting me and here is the song where I am only being lifted. I had this thing of ‘how am I going to do this?’ I recently realised that if I make up my mind, I fully go and surrender to my director and co-actor. I was like, ‘Let’s just do it. If this is what the film needs, let’s do it.’ Once you trust the man, it becomes fun.”

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When asked if she didn’t have moments of skepticism about the song and choreography, and playing a role of a woman who is quite verbal about her sexual needs, the actress said, “If I did doubt myself, it would be impossible to be an actor.” She explained, “As an actor, I know I am here to entertain others and please my director. I work to hear the word ‘excellent’ from my director. This is my bread and butter and this is what I am here to do. If I will start isolating my roles and start overthinking around it. That will be typecasting myself and I don’t want to do that. I like to challenge myself and I choose diverse roles and films, be it Animal, Chhava, or Sikandar. I can run around trees and do four-five songs like that and then I can do Srivalli in Pushpa. People can dislike it, but not everything is everybody’s cup of tea. And that’s my take on it.”

Rashmika Mandanna plays the role of Srivalli in the Sukumar directorial. The film, released on December 4, has crossed the Rs 1500 crore mark globally. The film’s premiere witnessed a stampede at Hyderabad’s Sandhya theatre after Allu Arjun and Rashmika showed up at the screening. This resulted in a woman dying because of the stampede. Her 9-year-old son, who was also injured, is still critical.