Naga Chaitanya said lines in English so Dhootha co-star Prachi Desai would understand: ‘Most humble star I have met’

Prachi Desai is set to make her Telugu language debut in the Amazon Prime Video series Dhootha later this year. The show marks the streaming debut of actor Naga Chaitanya, who has been a known name and face in the film industry for over a decade. In a recent interaction with Hindustan Times, Prachi spoke about her experience of working with Naga Chaitanya and reading lines in a language she doesn’t speak or understand. Also read: Prachi Desai was told she was ‘too pretty’ for a role

Talking about her co-star, affectionately called Chay, Prachi Desai says, “I don’t really know how much to say about Chay because he has been a wonderful co-star, immensely patient and just so nice to be around. I think he is the most humble star I have probably met in my life, just very genuine. Working with him was really great.”

The contrast between the actors, when it comes to proficiency in Telugu, is apparent and Prachi knows that all too well. But she says that Chay went out of his way to make sure she was comfortable with the language barrier on sets. She says, “It’s his mother tongue so it comes naturally to him. It’s like us doing Hindi films, it’s such a familiar zone. For him, it was like coming back to one of those sets but then to have a person in front of you who doesn’t understand anything about the language. I’ll give you an instance about the kind of person he is. He knew that I don’t understand the language so at one point I said, ‘just before the dialogue, will you remind me what this particular paragraph means’. Those are big scenes and you’re shooting them in one go. If you don’t understand the language, you don’t know what the scene means. The kind of actor that I am, I really like to listen to everything so that I can respond and take it all in, so that I perform instinctively. So, when it came to my close-up, he used to say all of it (his lines) in English because that is how I would understand everything he was saying in the scene. I thought that was really commendable. It’s just being very mindful. Those are really the kind of things that reflect on how a person is and how much they value their job as well as how supportive they are of the other person. That was really heartwarming.”

In fact, Prachi adds that the experience of mugging up lines in Telugu was more daunting than playing a psychotic killer in one of her recent outings. “The experience overall was more daunting. I think it was probably more terrifying than playing Ranjana (her negative role in her recent release Forensic). Oh my God, how do you say dialogues that you don’t understand anything about? But, I think that’s the fun of being an actor. You just never stop learning. This was another big learning about how you try to mouth that while remembering to stop making weird faces. You are trying to remember your lines while also trying to express and react,” says Prachi with a laugh.

But Prachi is grateful for the experience that she believed she was able to sail through due to a combination of her experience and the support of Chay and National Award-winning director Vikram K Kumar. She says, “It’s just nice that I am comfortable in front of the camera by now because of the experience I have. I think that obviously makes a bit of a difference. And obviously, having good people around helped because I had a great director who was incredibly helpful and cheerful throughout, but also insanely dedicated. At the back of my head, I knew I was a little worried. They probably were worried too. But it didn’t show. Everyone just made everyone comfortable around each other.”

Dhootha is a thriller, which also stars Parvathy Thiruvothu, Priya Bhavani Shankar, and Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam. It is set to stream on Amazon Prime Video later this year but no release date has been announced. Prachi was most recently seen in the Zee5 film Forensic, which also starred Vikrant Massey and Radhika Apte.