Sudhanshu Pandey makes his debut in Kannada with 'Kotigobba 3'

We see walls of culture and language breaking between film industries today. With actors such as Ashish Vidhyarthi, Atul Kulkarni, Makarand Deshpande and more foraying into Kannada films and actors from Karnataka such as Vinaya Prakash, Meghana Raj and Skanda Ashok working in Tamil and Malayalam films. The latest actor to join the bandwagon and foray into Kannada films is Bollywood actor and model Sudhanshu Pandey, who says, “Thank god that walls are breaking. We are a huge country. It is unfortunate that for a long time, only the Hindi film industry was labelled the major film industry while others were called regional cinema. I see even that wall breaking, fortunately. Everyone has known it all along in their hearts that the South has been churning out better content.” The actor cites films such as Baahubali, Eaga, and Enthiran, “Which proves to be not just iconic but also huge grossers across the country.”

Sudhandhu explains how he came to be a part of Kotigobba 3 . “When I met the director, the manner in which he described the character made me give my nod.” Even though Sudhanshu has acted in four Tamil films, Kotigobba 3 will be his debut in Kannada. Has he watched any Kannada films? He replies, “not particularly, but sometimes on TV I do catch a few dubbed versions of South Indian films. It takes time for me to figure out which film is Kannada, Tamil or Telugu. But we do watch a lot of dubbed versions and some of the films do so well even on cable. I feel the South Indian industry is fabulous when it comes to content, which is a rarity in Bollywood.”

He has still not started shooting with Sudeep for the film, but has already finished his first leg of work and will soon be back to finish his schedule in Bengaluru.

Will he dub his own voice? “I would love to, but I am not sure if I will be able to speak the language authentically. In Billa 2 I did my dubbing,” says the actor, who is thrilled about being a part of 2.0 with Rajnikanth. “The film is a cult classic in the making and I feel like a small spot in the whole team. Akshay Kumar is also a part of Billa 2.”

Having worked in Mumbai and Karnataka, the actor observes that one stark difference in the work culture is “the peace, which is dominant in people working here. That is something difficult to fathom or get in Mumbai, which is far more laid back when it comes to work pace. Here they are fast paced and very organised too.”

The model-turned-actor seems to be in a happy place today. Besides his acting career, he just released his solo-single, “Teri Adaa”, which is not only produced by him but he has also partly written the lyrics. About future projects, he says, talks are on for a web series, which will be produced by a Hollywood production house based out of Sydney.

Is he thankful that he is not the conventional Bollywood hero? Sudhanshu replies, “I am satisfied that I have no one particular image and am getting opportunities to pick up varied roles in varied languages.”