He appears a little anxious, a little nervous. Technically this is his second film but he would prefer to call it his debut movie. “I’m feeling a riot of emotions, am being relaunched in a proper way,” says Gautham, son of popular comedian Brahmanandam.
He was just eighteen when he acted in Pallakilo Pellikoothuru. The heroine was nine years older to him and he grew a stubble to suit her on screen. It all happened so quickly, the making and the release of the film and the range of reactions too. Everyone opined that the boy had a spark, projected confidence and ease. The movie didn’t do too well but Gautham did get offers. He declined this time as he wanted to be mentally and physically prepared to take up movies as a challenge and as a career too.
After doing his bachelors in management from St Mary’s that took three years, he put the rest two in rigorous training, honing dialogue delivery, horse riding, martial arts, work outs and dances. He had heard around 30 to 40 scripts and eventually zeroed in on “varevaa”. “I felt this was the perfect material”, he avers. But even before he put on pan cake for Varevaa, he did a demo video and circulated it amongst the movie people to get their inputs, and only when the response was positive he went ahead with the film.
Gautham is a spitting image of his father Brahmanandam but he insists he looks like his mother and his brother Siddarth is a replica of his dad. A very close knit family, the actor says he has very few friends and all of them are not from the industry. “I never grew up on a diet of movies, dad would seldom discuss movies at home. Only if he would be very happy with a particular scene he’d done that day, he would enact and tell us the satisfaction he’d derived from it. The last I remember was when he worked in Athadu, he was very happy and spoke about it to us.”
The actor says if Brahmannadam entertained people on screen, it was him and his brother Siddarth who kept him amused and happy at home. He could have asked his father to launch him but he’s keen to make it on his own steam. He quips, “I know dad’s there for me, the moral support is more than enough. Production is a big thing, he is already working in so many films and need to have his mind free. I don’t want to disturb him, I am learning from the scratch and hope to make him proud.”
Chandrasekhar Yeleti has a subject ready for him and that could be the next movie, some changes in the script are being done. So whom does he idolize? He sounds politically correct, he carefully avoids his father who has 890 films to his credit and says amongst comedians Rajendra Prasad is his favourite and likes Chiranjeevi for his all round performance. But when he’s free he likes to browse the net and watch his dad’s videos on youtube, “they are fun though” he adds. Meanwhile Vareeva is eighty percent done and Gautham is
keeping his fingers crossed. There’s another budding talent from his home. His brother who is finishing graduation is inclined in graphics, designing and anything that’s behind the camera. Prod Brahmannadam to react, he folds his hands and looks at the skies for blessings!…