Telugu superstar Vijay Deverakonda who turns a year older on May 9 is shooting in Kashmir for his eleventh film with Samantha Ruth Prabhu
Ever since Arjun Reddy Vijay Deverakonda and I have been connected. Not that I empathized with the film or the character.Neither did he. But its impact reverberated across the Telugu film industry and Bollywood too. Regional cinema remained no longer regional,as Vijay took on the role of a headstrong thoroughly unpleasant doped-out doctor with serious commitment issues. Hate him or hate him(no one could love this despicable dude) Vijay stood fearlessly tall at the centre of the storm. His performance remains far ahead of what Shahid Kapoor did in the Hindi remake Kabir Singh. As for the Tamil remake,let’s not even go there.
Vijay followed up Arjun Reddy with Geetha Govindam(2018). This was the world of Sooraj Barjatya tinged with a touch of tender eroticism and defined by a bustling state of constant anxiety about the mating game.And who better equipped to project the exacerbated anxieties of sexual discontent than Vijay Deverakonda? Doing a fulsome 360-degree about-turn from his role as the self-consumed destructive alcoholic-junkie in Arjun Reddy, Deverakonda was absolutely at home playing a man bewildered by the circumstances that suddenly appear to co ntrol his life and libido.
Taxiwaala was a breezy blizzard of easy scares and languorous laughter. This mix was a hit in the Hindi film Stree. It was attempted successfully again, bringing to the fused genre a kind of buoyant eeriness that makes ghosts and spirits non-threatening but not glib or over-casual. There are scenes of spiked hilarity where the actor speaks directly to his car, as though it were a particularly bothersome girlfriend whom he acquired without checking her Adhaar card. Nemesis is just a joyride in this feel-good horror-comedy where Stephen King meets David Dhawan and they both head to see Stree.
Now when Vijay gets ready for his Bollywood debut in Karan Johar’s Liger he has plenty of excitement to re-energize his batteries this birthday.
Vijay normally doesn’t celebrate birthdays. “I feel very awkward.I feel it’s attention for the wrong reasons.I usually turn off my phone from 12 tonight.As in I didn’t even choose to be born.It’s something my parents decided- to have a kid.Why should I take any credit for it? I like attention for things I do, like a good film or performance or an interview even.”
Here’s a thought to make Vijay’s fans feel happy on his birthday. There may be a sequel to Arjun Reddy. Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga and Vijay have discussed it even while they were filming Arjun Reddy.
Says Vijay, “There is so much to this character that remains unexplored. We will return to Arjun… at some point for sure.”