It's 10:30 in the night, it's been a while since she was awake so long this year. After a brief story session that stretched beyond two and a half hours, Samantha hides her fatigue and over a bowl of rice talks of life post Dookudu. There is no exultation or excitement, she sounds balanced and sensible and says as a person she doesn't really expect much from what she does and concentrates on her failures.
"I look into my limitations and work on that. Destiny has been kind to me and I'm in a happy place where I can pick and choose great films from the bottom of my heart which not all can do. Nevertheless I see many beautiful and talented actors around, I can't credit myself with this success as this is not an industry that exists because of beauty or talent but mostly because of luck. One Friday it is me another Friday it's someone else."
Post Ye Maaya Chesave, life changed drastically for Samantha Ruth Prabhu, she wanted more from life. Not money or fame but certain values that would stay with her for posterity and define her personality. She avers, "I've started meeting different people, learnt to understand and respect them. This is an experience that no school can teach you, also it's upto you to make a choice; which side you want to go in life.
Fortunately decision making is easy for me and I'm quite quick at it. One advice that I received at that point of time was from Mahesh Babu. After YMC, I was struggling so hard to better each film and I was beginning to act. That was when he told me to treat each film as the first, handle my diet well and stop being a star and be an actor instead. I am willing to learn and It's never late to learn."
Samantha is beginning to speak Telugu but will take some time before she dubs as there has been a criticism that her Telugu smacks of a heavy Tamil accent. Chirpy and child-like she is also introspective, she says, "People said I acted well in YMC when all I did was to walk in the entire movie. In Dookudu I acted and people raved about my dancing skills."
Whatever the remarks, they had all been positive given the limitations of the character a woman gets in a Telugu film. In a short span she has garnered unbelievable fanfare that a mere picture on a wallposter pushed her fans to the theatres screening Erra Gulabeelu only to see her do a brief role in the climax to their dissapointment.
She adds, "Even Gautham Menon had no clue on that, the posters of mine were also not from that film and I tweeted to inform people about my guest appearance." The actor has since long stopped tweeting as it was threatening to be an addiction. "You start following people every day to see what they are saying and you have to say something for them to follow, I merely didn't want to become a slave of that habit."
Samantha has an interesting bunch of films coming next year but she has a weird sentiment of not talking about her films before the release and we let her be but she says the next film will have a character that is very close to her. She is romancing three heroes in three different languages for each shot every day which is a Gautham Menon film.
Her funny bone surfaces, "It is a pain but it is possible because the director is Gautham Menon, he has a flair with people and the characters. The three heroes are brilliant, extremely comfortable to work with. I'm sure there would be World War III if there had been three heroines."
The actor's career is going great guns but she is losing out on her personal life and why not when she has fallen into the one crore bracket. She elaborates, "True, I'm losing out on friends in the process, no weddings, no gatherings. There won't be holiday for Christmas and New Year too but I hope to see my hard work pay off next year.
One crore? Even if a producer came to me with one crore I would say no. I'm not ready, not yet there, when I feel I'm worth it I will take it. May be when one crore tickets of my film are sold."
