Naveen Polishetty to make Telugu debut as lead with Agent Sai Srinivas Atreya 

We all know him from numerous viral videos but soon the Telugu audience will know him as a hero as well. Debuting as a lead with Agent Sai Srinivas Atreya, Naveen Polishetty is evidently excited. 

After a successful stint in the digital arena, things seem to have taken off for him in cinema as well. “Agent Sai Srinivas Atreya is my debut film as a lead in Telugu and I am also debuting in a Hindi film called Chichchore, directed by Nitesh Tiwari,” he says. 

Naveen had his first encounter with Agent Sai two years ago. “Swaroop, the director of the film got in touch with me two years ago, asked me if I would take a look at this story he was writing and sent me the synopsis. I loved it; it was a unique, yet entertaining, piece of work. So, I got back to him and told him that I would like to work on the film. We sat together and made improvements, and now here we are.”

The two-year journey with Swaroop also earned him the credit of co-screenplay writer on the film. “Being a part of the writing process helped me understand the character and his world deeply. It served as prep for the shoot. We also did workshops for a month before we went on floors,” he adds.

Agent Sai is a thriller but in a comic backdrop. “The title itself challenges the idea of how a detective is perceived. He is a small-town guy who is a detective in his own small world. His office is a room with a shutter which has ‘FBI Nellore’ painted across the top, a notice that says, ‘We don’t have any branches in the USA, and an announcement of Aashadham Dhamaka offers. That’s the tone the film takes,” Naveen explains. 

While his two debuts are keeping him busy, he has also apparently been flooded with scripts. But he is choosy. “It doesn’t matter which language I get work in. Work is never about the language for me. It’s always been my prerogative to pick scripts that are different, but still can work commercially. There is a spark I look for that would make me want to be a part of the story immediately,” he says.