The action sequences in RRR have to be some of the most memorable ones in SS Rajamouli, Jr NTR and Ram Charan’s careers. Cinematographer KK Senthil spoke to Film Companion and decoded some iconic scenes from the film. 

‘Jr NTR is a national level badminton player’

In one of the scenes, Jr NTR faces off a tiger but not before he runs alongside it. He’s also chased by a fox and a wolf before that. Senthil reveals that Jr NTR ran so fast, that they were surprised. Turns out, the actor used to play badminton at the state and national level in his teens. He also stated that it was challenging to match his fitness levels.

In another iconic sequence, Jr NTR jumps out of a van with numerous wild animals he has captured to attack Britishers. This is the first time, he also faces off Ram Charan’s character. “Due to his (Jr NTR) legacy, the interval is sometimes better than the climax in his films. We shot this sequence for numerous nights. There were thousands of people in this scene who had to pretend animals were attacking them. Our VFX supervisor suggested we use motorised cars with animal faces on them, it helped,” he explained.

‘Ram Charan was apprehensive’

In another iconic sequence, Ram’s character beats up numerous Indians who are protesting against the Britishers. He goes solo into a sea of people with his lathi, beats, and gets beaten up but perseveres until he brings them under control. Senthil reveals that Ram was apprehensive to do this scene because he didn’t know how the audience would receive an Indian beating up numerous Indians.

He said, “In Magadheera there’s a sequence where he fights 100 people; now he needed to do something bigger. Based on that idea, we made it 2000 people. Charan was very apprehensive, being an Indian, to beat up fellow Indians, but Rajamouli convinced him about the character arch. We started off with rehearsals for 3 months on how to do it. We had circles of actors with fighters, junior fighters, actors who can fight, and more. The biggest challenge was to make the audience feel they're part of the chaos. Charan has a meditative expression in this scene; we worked hard to capture that expression properly.”

Upcoming work

Jr NTR is currently shooting for War 2 with Hrithik Roshan. He’s also working on Devara with Koratala Siva and Janhvi Kapoor. Ram Charan is shooting for Game Changer with Shankar and Kiara Advani. He will soon be seen in a film by Buchi Babu Sana with Janhvi.

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