SS Rajamouli & Jr. NTR receive standing ovation at RRR screening for Oscars 2023 members

With Oscars 2023 buzz for Telugu film RRR rising in the West, the team including SA Rajamouli, Jr. NTR and Ram Charan hosted a special screening of the film at The Directors Guild of America Theatre for Academy members. During the conversation, the filmmaker and the actors spoke about the reception the film has received in the West.

Jr. NTR recalled the scene of Bheem jumping out with animals. He said, “The best thing for me is the shot where Bheem jumps out with the animals. I never knew how the shot was supposed to be, he never told me how I was going to jump out with all these animals, he never told me how he is going to shoot. I only got to watch that when the movie released and I was like woah!”

Furthermore, Rajamouli talked about his ‘sync’ with Jr. NTR. “We have worked for four films together; we are so much in sync.” NTR cut in to say, “We’ve done Naatu Naatu together.”

He recalled how ‘Naatu Naatu’ was shot. “We shot it on the last leg of the film. We were tortured for 65 nights. We were beating each other, me and Ram Charan — we were killing each other and then it started with apologising — SS Rajamouli really wanted us to hate each other. Finally, by the 21st or 22nd night, we stopped apologising and said let’s get it done. And that’s when he brings his bazooka, called ‘Naatu Naatu’. We’ve done complicated steps, but ‘Naatu Naatu’ is not about the steps being complicated, it was the synchronisation, which Rajamouli stressed on,” he added.

He continued, “Very few songs have an introduction, middle and ending. When two friends are too deep into each other, you don’t need to look at each other. You can predict what they’re going to do. It’s about two friends being in sync. We shot that song for 12 days, and this man would torture us from 8-8, we would sleep at 11:30, and wake up at 5:30. This happened after 7 days of rehearsals. He was so hell-bent on synchronisation, watching on the monitor if the legs and hands went together, and I was like ‘Jesus, why are you doing this?’ I never understood why he was stressing on synchronisation so much.”

RRR has been shortlisted for Best Original Song for ‘Naatu Naatu’ for Oscars 2023.