Gunasekhar and Neelima: Samantha is the perfect choice to portray Shakuntala’s quiet inner strength Premium

Gunasekhar and Neelima on ‘Shaakuntalam’: Samantha is the perfect choice to portray Shakuntala’s quiet inner strength

A phrase that producer Neelima Guna and her father, director Gunasekha, use to describe the essence of their film Shaakuntalam, headlined by Samantha Ruth Prabhu, is ‘mythology for millennials’. In an hour-long conversation in their Hyderabad office, the father-daughter duo discuss how they strived to convey the essence of Kalidasa’s Sanskrit play Abhijnanasakuntalam while trying to make it appealing to a contemporary audience. The Telugu film will also release in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi on April 14.

Gunasekhar points out that one of the first screen adaptations of Abhijnanasakuntalam was the 1940 Tamil film Sakuntalai directed by Ellis R Dungan, with M S Subbulakshmi playing the title role. The latter adaptations included Shakuntala (1943) and Stree (1961) in Hindi by V Shantaram and a Telugu film Sakunthala (1966) starring NTR and Saroja Devi, directed by Kamalakara Kameswara Rao. “We haven’t witnessed many on-screen mythological dramas since the 1960s. Of late, people are again showing an interest in historical and mythological stories. The earlier adaptations of Shakuntala’s story had more drama and retained some of the Sanskrit poetry. We have toned down the melodrama for the younger generation.” Neelima agrees and adds that Shaakuntalam’s aesthetics — dialogues, performances, production design, costumes and the visual palette — are in line with this thought process.

Neelima was particular that the actor playing Shakuntala had to be someone who is perceived as a role model. “Shakuntala’s journey depicts her quiet inner strength. The actor portraying this character has to look demure, delicate and showcase the strength of someone who will stand for truth. Samantha was the perfect fit.” Gunasekhar was convinced with this reasoning, “Samantha is a youth icon and if she took up this role, we knew that the reach would be good.”

Once Samantha came on board, she trained with Aruna Bhikshu, professor of dance at the University of Hyderabad, to get the required body language. Samantha tweaked her workouts and incorporated animal flow movements to look like the part of Shakuntala.

Dev Mohan was chosen to play King Dushyant after Neelima and Gunasekhar saw him in the Malayalam film Sufiyum Sujatayum. “He had that spark in his eyes and we found our prince charming,” says Neelima. A screen test followed. Then Dev Mohan trained in horse riding and sword fighting.

Shakuntala and Dushyant’s son, prince Bharata, required an expressive child actor. Neelima chanced upon Allu Arjun and his wife Sneha Reddy’s Instagram reels of their daughter Allu Arha. “Arha trained with us and it was a joy listening to her speak Telugu. She has been raised to speak her mother tongue and does not know English. She taught me that magnet is called ‘ice kantham’ (six-year-old Arha’s pronunciation of ayaskantham) in Telugu. Conversing with her, I grew confident that the viewers of Shaakuntalam will also take to some of the old-world Telugu words used in the film,” says Neelima.

The seven-act play written by Kalidasa, says Gunasekhar, had vivid descriptions. “His poetry is imaginative and you can visualise the spectacle while reading it.” Extensive research and development preceded the making of the film. “The pre-production took nearly a year. We filmed Shaakuntalam in five months since we had every detail planned. The post-production and visual effects took two years. We had no reference for a contemporary adaptation of Shakuntala’s story. For filmmakers in the near future, we wanted our film to be a reference and put in a lot of effort.”