Natural Star Nani is very excited about Jersey, a sports drama based on cricket. Nani says it is like beginning his film career again. He says he has tasted success and failures in his career and said he got used to the cycle of success, failure. He said Jersey made him feel lighter and gave him a feeling of starting career again.
“Jersey is the fastest film that I’ve signed. Usually I take a lot of time before signing script and ponder over the script. But as soon as director Gautam completed narrating the climax, I’ve jumped and said I’ll do this film,” said Nani talking about the origin of Jersey.
Nani said he has underwent training in cricket at Daniel Cricket Academy where he practiced cricket. He said although he had played gully cricket in his childhood, he said he reinvented cricket after professional training. Nani said his perception on cricket has changed after he did Jersey.
“I’m always fond of sports films. After Bheemili Kabadi Jattu, I’ve got time to do Jersey now. I got injured my nose during cricket practice for Jersey, but this is not as big as the injuries that I had met during Bheemili Kabadi Jattu. It’s just that social media wasn’t that active back then. Today, everything is gaining a lot of social significance and we’re under media, social scrutiny,” said Nani.
Meanwhile, Nani made it clear that Jersey is not the biopic of veteran cricketer Raman Lamba. “It is not the biopic of Raman Lamba. Jersey is heart-touching film which has many layers including a nice father-son drama,” shares Nani.
“Interestingly, director Gautam had written script naming the protagonist character as Arjun (name of my son in real life) and named the son’s character in the film as Nani (my name in real life). It’s sheer coincidence. Since he had these names of characters in his script, I didn’t intervene to change them,” said Nani.
Talking about the famous sobriquet ‘Natural Star’, Nani said, “I don’t have any liking or disliking towards such sobriquets. Since fans are calling me ‘Natural Star’ out of their love, affection, I don’t want them to stop.”
Ask him whether Nani has watched Majili the film also has cricket theme and the film was directed by Ninnu Kori fame Shiva Nirvana. “No, I haven’t watched Majili yet. I’d love to, but I didn’t get time. Since I haven’t watched the film, I can’t comment about it and the similarities of having cricket backdrop.”
Meanwhile, Nani said he loves web series and consumes a lot of web series on digital platforms like Amazon, Netflix. He said Game of Thrones is his favourite. Nani said he may attempt a web series in future depending on the content. Nani is shooting for his next Gang Leader being directed by Vikram Kumar. Nani said the controversy surrounding the Gang Leader title hasn’t reached them yet. He stressed that Gang Leader is the apt title for his film and hence it has been named so. Nani signed off saying Jersey will be a landmark film in his career. He is all praise for director Gautam, co-actor Shraddha Srinath, producer Naga Vamsi. So, let’s wait till 19th April to know the people’s verdict on Jersey.
