When actor Kiran Abbavaram begins this interview at his workplace in Film Nagar, Hyderabad, quickly after a press convention, one expects him to give you repetitive solutions, since he has been selling his new Telugu movie, Dilruba, for some time. But he speaks candidly, taking inventory of the highs and lows in his temporary profession.
Dilruba, the romance drama directed by Viswa Karun, starring Kiran and Rukshar Dhillon, comes months after the smash hit KA. Kiran had entered Telugu cinema with Raja Vaaru Rani Gaaru, a breezy small city romance, in 2019. He had witnessed sudden recognition together with his preliminary few movies and later went via a tough section.
KA, he acknowledges, was a turning level. “I did short films and entered cinema as an independent producer. I was creatively involved and had a clear idea of my first two films. Later, I worked with bigger production houses. I am glad I got those opportunities. But I realised that I could not just go to the sets and perform, without having a 360-degree involvement.”
Kiran says he was juggling a number of movies, working and not using a break and didn’t realise that the movies weren’t shaping up as anticipated. “I had to pause, rethink my approach and that is when KA happened.”
Overwhelming response
Kiran Abbavaram in ‘Dilruba’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
The final 20 minutes of KA made it one of essentially the most mentioned movies of 2024. The movie witnessed an amazing response from audiences, with many taking care to not reveal the climax on social media. “We live in times when people have status messages that reveal a film’s climax. Luckily that did not happen with KA. The audiences owned our film,” Kiran says with a smile.
Stories like KA are uncommon to return by. Kiran, who listens to at the very least two story concepts a day, says aspiring administrators who hail from completely different cities are brimming with fascinating concepts. “Some may not be good narrators or may not know how to flesh out an interesting idea into engaging screenplays. This is where guidance is needed.”
Kiran discloses that he likes to announce a movie and promote it solely when it is practically 80% full, going towards the present development of saying mission launches with a bang on social media. “We followed that method for Raja Vaaru… and SR Kalyana Mandapam,” he says, reflecting on the result of these movies. “We promoted Raja Vaaru… in 60 colleges across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and got a lot of appreciation from critics. But unfortunately, it did not bring in the crowds. We attempted a close-to-reality romance musical, something on the lines of Premam but rooted in Telugu culture. Till date I don’t understand why the film did not work at the box office. So with SR Kalyana Mandapam, we took a ‘massy’ route.”
That, maybe, explains the portrayal of romance, some of which got here beneath criticism. Kiran weighs in, “Maybe 20% of the audience did not like a few scenes; the idea was to show the interactions between two boisterous characters. We did not knowingly cross a line. In fact, I came under more criticism for some of my next films.”
A sensitive strategy
All these learnings, he says, made him go for a extra sensitive portrayal of girls in his current movies. “In Dilruba, there will be nothing that women would object to,” he affirms. The story rides on the thought of not a former girlfriend with hatred and as a substitute, operates from an area of mutual respect.
“Dilruba was pitched to me in 2021 and filmed in 2023. After the release of KA, we revisited the film to make a few corrections and ensure that nothing looked stale. Filmmaking is constantly evolving in its portrayal of characters and technical details such as colour grading. People want to see younger actors like me doing something new.”
Kiran additionally hopes that the audiences will see a mature actor in him in Dilruba. He is conscious of the criticism that some of his portrayals lacked variation. “There have been times when I have not been fully convinced with a scene, but did it because the director believed in it. And it showed on screen. Also, I think I had portrayed diverse characters in my first three films. I was an innocent guy in Raja Vaaru…, an extrovert in SR… and a man with night blindness in Sebastian P.C. 524. After this, the other films may have come across as monotonous.”
Since the turnaround with KA, Kiran is assured that he is heading in the right direction.
Published – March 13, 2025 11:37 am IST
