Vamsi Paidipally About His Stars

Vamsi Paidipally is enjoying the success of Super Star Mahesh Babu's milestone film Maharshi. Speaking to scribes, he shared his experiences about the stars he teamed with. He came with the following one-liners about his heroes.

NTR is brother, Mahesh Babu is soulmate, Prabhas is an amazing friend and described his films Munna, Oopiri and Maharshi as a lesson, his reinvention and a memorable journey.

Vamsi said, “I and Prabhas became friends during Eshwar for which I worked as an assistant director. Later I worked as associate director for his film Varsham. I joined Bhadra shoot in between and during that time Dil Raju asked me to ready a story and so I penned Munna."

When asked whether Munna was a hit, average or a flop, he said, "As far as my knowledge, it is not a hit. It didn’t reach viewers as I expected. It was because of me. Though Dil Raju invested whatever I asked and Prabhas trusted me, I might have got arrogant on getting opportunity at such a young age and so the film didn’t do well.

Had I struggled to become a director, I wouldn't have gone into depression. Since I got opportunity easily, I came to know about the failure. I tried to realize self and the failure helped a lot. Had the film been a success, I wouldn't have been in the position where I am today.

After Munna debacle I started getting small offers. But I look any film as a big one. I decided to do the next with a top star. So for one year after Munna, I didn’t have any salary. After watching Munna teaser, NTR called me and from then on we became close. After the film’s release, he told me 'Vamsi you did not fail as a director. Story went wrong somewhere and it is better you ready a good story'. 

Later when I met Ram Charan in a coffee shop, he too remarked the same. These words worked as a motivation. I penned Brundavanam story and told the same to Dil Raju. He liked it and I narrated the same to NTR. The moment I narrated the first half, he hugged me and said 'we are doing this film."

On Brundavanam set getting drowned, "Actually the reality is something different. We already shot the scenes in the erected set. Climax was leftover and so we erected a set near a lake in the outskirts of Hyderabad. We erected the set in summer and shot the film there. While planning for the climax, rainy season started and entire house got submerged. After returning back from the song shoot in Switzerland, we were told the set was drowned. At the Dubai airport, I got an idea to shoot the climax in a temple. So we completed the scenes with Sr NTR visuals from Dana Veera Soora Karna."

On planning to cast NTR in Oopiri, he said, “Yes, we planned to cast NTR for Karthi role. However NTR already gave dates to another project. Nagarjuna too singed other projects. So at that time we felt Karthi was the best option and when I told the story, he at once agreed. When I went to narrate the story to Nagarjuna, he said he already watched the French film two years back and remarked to his wife Amala that he should do this film in Telugu. He at once gave green signal for the film. I readied 2-3 versions with Telugu nativity and what was filmed was the final version."

Recently, Mahesh Babu asked Vamsi Paidipally to prepare another script that suits his sensibilities and image, to which the director happily agreed.