Triple role magic

Jr NTR, the scion of Nandamuri clan, surpasses his arch rivals like Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu and Ram Charan to don a ‘triple’ role in his next film “Jai Lava Kusa” and joins the league of legendary actors like NTR, ANR and Krishna besides reviving the trend of an actor doing multiple roles which was in vogue during 60-80s.

The ‘Temper’ star who rocked in a dual role in `Adhurs’ and proved that he can carry on contrasting roles with ease is now stepping into the big shoes yesteryear superstars. “NTR is quite excited with the script and also preparing himself to breathe-life into three different roles,” says a source, close to the unit.

In fact, the phenomenon of an actor portraying multiple roles was very popular with yesteryear Telugu stars who rode the screen in various avatars from 60’s to 80’s but later the trend faded out. Legendary NTR stands stall with his scintillating performance in `Dana Veera Soora Karna’ in roles of Karna, Duryodhan and Krishna and spun box office magic.

His contemporary and thespian actor ANR went a step ahead and played nine roles in “Navarathri’ and catapulted multiple roles to next level and followed by superstar Krishna who was seen in three roles in “Raktha Sambandam” and even Chiranjeevi tried his hand in triple role in “Muguru Monagalu” just to mention a few.

“Triple roles lost their sheen as they turned out to be predictable as they rode on jaded lost-and-found formula themes and clichéd family reunion kind of stuff,” says leading writer Gopi Mohan who penned a dual role for NTR’s blockbuster Adhurs. “NTR displayed his acting prowess in “Adhurs” and bound to carry of a triple role with similar ease.

I am glad that he has revived the trend and giving scope for writers to sketch roles with grey shades to break the monotony of upright star-driven movies,” he says and adds a rider, “Novelty is the key for such films, since Tamil films like `Robot’ and `Dasavatharam’ struck a chord with viewers with their novelty and contrasting avatars. I hope three roles of NTR will be as different as chalk-and-cheese and create a magic of sorts, ” he adds.

However, director Devi Prasad says making dual and triple roles film was a technician’s nightmare in the past. “Earlier, cinematographers and directors used to spend sleepless nights to get the frame right of one actor sharing screen space in two avatars (like father and son shown in the same scene).

They used to take mask shots by covering half of the lens for one role and then cover the other half for the next shot, to show them as two different persons as realistically as possible, nevertheless, it was a daunting effort. But advent of green mat, CG has lessened the burden on the filmmakers these days,” he concludes.