Ashwin Rao Pallaki, is today best remembered for his role in the blockbuster film Kirik Party. He is the boy who eats glucose when Rakshit is hospitalised.
From being a supporting actor Ashwin will now be seen as a leading man in Photographer Pandu (PP), directed by debut director Virat Manjunath.
Ashwin tells us how he landed this role. “Virat saw me in Kirik Party and felt I would suit the character. This is my very first role as a hero. I thought it would be a supporting role when he contacted me. I was bowled over when I was told it was the role of the protagonist,” he says adding, “The challenge for this role was to speak in the Mandya dialect which was tough for me as I come from the Mangaluru belt, where the language is more mellow. So I had to work on the character, mannerisms and dialect.”
PP is said to be a comedy and according to Ashwin comedy comes easy to him. “Maybe because I am a born clown and joke around with every one around me. The only challenge about comedy is that it should not become vulgar with double-meaning jokes,” shares the actor who started off as a TV artiste and also made many short film with a couple of his close friends.
“It was when we came together to make our short films that we decided to use situational comedy which according to me works better than vulgarity for humour. There can be clean humour. PP is one such film.”
PP, explains Ashwin, is set in the 1980s and will have a retro look. “I play the title role and will be wearing bell-bottomed trousers,” laughs the actor, who goes back in time to share how he got into the film world. “I was crazy about films from a young age. I was horrified when I saw a film on TV where a few bad men burn up a man. I bawled and asked my mother to do something and she replied calmly that it was a film and an imaginary story. That was when the curiosity about films was triggered in me.”
He next started reading and studying all about films. Though he had a few short stints, the actor says he was not offered any roles. “I was still very raw at acting too and am still learning,” says Ashwin, who then worked in the television industry as an episode artiste. “It was a struggle for me and my actor friends. Now, we are all growing together.”
Kirik Party helped people notice Ashwin. “That film helped me a lot professionally. No one would have known who Ashwin is had that cinema not happened. Kirik Party will always be special to me.”
He also had a word of praise for Virat, the director of PP. “I loved the way Virat has written the story and every time I go for a shoot, I look at the director with a little scepticism as to what he is up to. The first day, I was curious and finally I understood what Virat wanted. Now that I know and am confident that PP will be a fun film to watch.”