July 05, 2011 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
The actor revelled in the role given to him as all along his career he got to portray only one aggressive emotion. Here, he had to underplay his role, hide his cunning, conflicting, manipulative thoughts, deceive his members but at the same time let the audience know his nature. Showing such variations was indeed tough. Ajay reiterates that it is not a Naxal film, Naxalism is just a background; it's about what a bad leader does to his group and the interaction of the members within.
He cites the scene where he orders mercy killing of a senior member in the Dalam as his favourite. He adds, "The audience too concurred with the suggestion. It gives us an element of satisfaction when you take the viewers along with you and believe in you. There was a lot of pressure on me though, as this is a character that would run the entire film and I didn't want people to say Ajay baaga cheyyaledhu."
The actor is all praise for Srikanth who played a journalist and says he saw the film as a story and didn't worry about his role. But for him or his brother, Anil, the film wouldn't have happened. Ajay was not the first choice for Neelakanta initially, he was one of the third option. The actor was finalized after an audition. The film is going to be screened in Indian Panorama.
What are his next projects? He is playing Nithya Menon's brother in Nitin's Ishq, a patriot in Kannada film Sarathi, a villain in a Tamil movie Velayutham, in Bejawada Rowdilu and a possible role in the remake of Dabangg. In his repertoire of 90 films, he says he's got calls complimenting him for his work in about 15 films, "Chaala takkuva phone calls vasthaayi but the number of times the phone buzzed after Virodhi released shows that people indeed liked my work."
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