He likes to MOVE IT,MOVE IT

For someone who has acted in 30 films and choreographed in 100-odd movies,Prabhu is an industry in himself. The dancing sensation has just arrived from Chennai to promote his Hindi directorial debut,Wanted (a remake of his 2007 Tamil hit,Pokkiri). If he is nervous about the film,he isnt showing it. The Salman Khan-starrer has masala entertainer written all over it. The action sequences,especially a shot of Salman smashing a guys head on the steel bar in a local train,have got trade circles touting it as Salmans Ghajini. The director in him comes to the fore when he talks about his treatment of the undercover cop drama. Weve not overtly stylised the action scenes because we want Wanted to be a masala trip. Salman bhai has kept it real so youll see him doing a lot of physical action, he says.

The challenge,he says,is to make it work in an unfamiliar language. Its easy to create magic the first time if you have a good story in place but its very difficult to recreate the magic. I want to see if I have lived up to my own expectations, he says. This is Prabhus sixth film as a director.
From choreography,he graduated to playing the hero in films like Indhu,Kadhalan and Rasaiya and charted his direction route with the Telugu film Pournami. It was Pokkiri,starring Vijay and Asin,that created a box office storm. Producer Boney Kapoor got the rights and Salman insisted Prabhu direct the Hindi version too.

For someone who never thought of direction,Prabhu has grown to love his chosen vocation. I never thought Ill act or direct. I never even thought Ill dance. But when I got an opportunity to direct,I realised that Im a natural. So now Ive become very serious about it, he says.
Even as he talks the talk on direction,he knows quite well that for the audience,he will always be known for his dancing. But Prabhu never wanted to be a dancer. Despite his lineagehis father,Mugur Sundar is a famous dance master in the southern film industryPrabhu never danced in his childhood. He grudgingly took it up to compensate for his low marks in his school years. It was only when I flunked in my Class XI exams that I gave dancing a thought. It was my only option. My father supported me and I started assisting him in choreography and discovered that I can make a living, he says.

He got his break as a choreographer in 1988s Agni Natchathiram when his father asked him to choreograph a song. People seemed to like what I did in that movie and after that I never looked back, he says.
Though he trained in Bharatanatyam for three years,he evolved his own freestyle after watching Michael Jacksons Beat It video. Whatever Ive learnt about dancing,it has been because of MJ. I saw his video and told myself,Ok,Ill dance like him. The legendary singers recent death shook him up. He almost met him in 1999 when he was part of a dancing troupe with Shobhana and A.R. Rahman at the Michael Jackson and Friends concert in Munich,Germany. We were supposed to perform together but MJ had a freak accident in the lift just before the concert so he just did his jig and went away, he says. MJs passing has also ended Prabhus cherished dream of making a dance film with the legend.

Unlike his idol,who could dance for hours,Prabhu feels he gives his best in a 30-second flash. My dance is so energetic that I cant do a move for more than 30 seconds. More than the feet,my head starts reeling, he says.
He prefers to dance barefoot because he doesnt want his shoes to get spoilt. His thumb rule for shoes: I wear the same pair for one-and-a-half years. I hate changing shoes. Its a comfort thing. And the weirdest place he has ever danced in is the bathroom.
As a choreographer,the best compliment that anyone can give him is to say that his co dancer is better than him: case in point the Kay Sera Sera number with Madhuri Dixit in Pukar. I loved it when people said Madhuri danced better than me. That means my choreography worked, he says.

Prabhu has won two National Awards,one for the Tamil film Minsaara Kanavu and the other Hrithik Roshans Main aisa kyun hoon number in Lakshya. He feels the level of interest and the hours of practice differentiates a good dancer from an average one. He cites the example of Rajnikanth who he is choreographing in the forthcoming Endhrian (Robot). Even after so many years,Rajni sir practices his dance steps daily. If young actors are serious about dancing,they should also make it a part of their routine, he says.

For all his passion for choreographing actors,its ironic that he couldnt tutor his Wanted actor in his own film. I really wanted to choreograph Salman but I couldnt focus after my son…, he says. Last year,Prabhu lost his 12-year-old son,Vishal,to cancer.

Not wanting to discuss his loss,he requests us to change the topic and tells us of his next assignment: this one is a romantic Tamil film,Kalavadiya Pozhudhugal where he is acting with Bhumika Chawla. In the pipeline is also another Hindi direction vehicle with Salman. I hope after Wanted,I become the most wanted in Bollywood, he says.