It won't be an exaggeration to say that SS Rajamouli is one of India's most accomplished directors. After continuously directing spectacular films, his most recent film, RRR, is making India proud thanks to its Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as well as other accolades from around the world.
However, there was a moment when Rajamouli had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. He revealed that he had dropped out of college and was clueless in a video interview he gave at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where six of his works will be presented this year. Naturally, his father, the renowned screenwriter KV Vijayendra Prasad, was concerned for him and frequently inquired about his career goals. “(He said) it doesn’t matter what you want to be. You have to work for it. You can’t sit idle and waste your time,” said Rajamouli. “Just to escape from my father, I said I want to become a (film) director. I had no intention.”
The director claimed that at the time, he was unaware of the requirements needed to become a director. Rajamouli continued, “But my father took it seriously,” Rajamouli added. “He sent me to work in different fields of the industry. I worked as an assistant to an editor, recording assistant, and assistant director.”
K Vijayendra Prasad realized that his son could interpret dramatic scenes at some point. “He used to tell us stories he was developing and I used to point out how the drama can be amplified or the problem in the story that is decreasing the drama. So, he hired me as his assistant,” Rajamouli stated.
“My job in the assistant department was to create the action sequences, even at that time. So, we would narrate the action sequences to the directors and some of them really liked them”, he continued. The outcome of those action scenes was what ultimately inspired Rajamouli to pursue a career in filmmaking.
“When I used to see the sequences on the screen, I used to be very, very disappointed. That was not how I had envisioned them. So, these multiple disappointments at some point of time made me realize that I have to become a director to bring in the images in my mind to the screen exactly the way I want to”, he concluded.
