Rana Daggubati shows his 'dum'

Looks can be deceptive and how! Rana Daggubati is tall, beefy and a tad intimidating. But spend over an hour with him and you realise that beneath that towering personality lies a simple, gentle guy who likes nothing more than reading a book or watching movies!
But while he might be simple, Rana, who matched Amitabh Bachchan’s acting skills in Department, can be extremely diplomatic when he needs to be. His constant quips and easy manners gave us plenty of quotable quotes but we soon realised that it takes a lot to shake Rana up! While most Bollywood men shy from admitting that they are smitten, he openly confessed to having a special person in his life. And no, it isn’t Bipasha Basu! Over to Mr Daggubati for the Bips rumours and more...

What is the funniest blooper you’ve had on sets so far?
The fun aspect during the shoot of Department came from the new technology we adapted where we used cameras that looked like Handycams and were usually placed in hidden locations. So as an actor you are giving a shot which does not follow the usual ‘roll, camera, action’ routine. Instead, you are on your own, enacting your scene with these cameras hidden at strategic places. Suddenly, during a shot, four or five boys would rush at you with these cameras for a close angle. You need to ensure that you are not startled by it and continue to give your take. It was very challenging, to say the least.

I remember the first day of my shoot with Mr Bachchan. He looked at the cameras and gave a ‘what’s that’ look! It was amusing to see him get flustered by people suddenly rushing at him! Ramu (Ram Gopal Varma, the director) kept asking him, ‘Amitji ready?’ and I could see that he was a little affected with the number of cameras around. It made us all a bit uncomfortable as it was a new concept but we soon got used to it. The final results were
quite impactful.

You’ve managed to acquire a sizable number of fans, mostly female! Can you recount any interesting encounters?
I remember shooting for my first film in a village and an old lady came up to me and started blessing me, saying I was a very good actor and she enjoyed watching me on screen. I was puzzled because I hadn’t done any film before that, so how could I be ‘great’? After chatting with her for nearly 30 minutes, I realised that she had mistaken me for my uncle (he is a famous Telugu star). She had stopped watching films over 20 years ago! She even asked me why I had shaved off my moustache when the fact was that I had always been a clean shaven guy (laughs). It was hilarious!