For over a decade, Naveen Sajju has been one of the most recognisable folk-rooted voices in Kannada cinema, a singer who brings rustic rhythm, street flavour, and emotional rawness to mainstream film music. But long before the applause, the stage lights, and the playback success that followed Lucia, he was an orchestra singer carrying a microphone through small-town events, without any grand design of becoming a star.

Today, that journey takes an unexpected turn with Lo Naveena, the film that marks his debut as a lead actor. What makes the move interesting is that Naveen himself never chased the idea of heroism. Cinema, he says, simply kept pulling him closer.

“I never entered the industry with a big dream,” says Naveen Sajju. “I was part of orchestra teams, singing in front of crowds, doing theatre plays, and surviving one day at a time. Even coming into cinema once felt impossible and unreachable to me.”

Speaking ahead of the film’s release on May 15, Naveen Sajju reflects on how unexpectedly acting entered his life. Everything changed after Lucia in 2013. The popularity of his songs suddenly made filmmakers look at him differently. “After Lucia, a team approached me, saying I could become a hero. Since I had theatre experience, they believed I could act too. They even showed me photos of Dhanush as inspiration and launched a film called Tamte. My whole village came for the muhurath,” he recalls with a laugh. But the film never took off. “For five years, I kept moving around without realising how much time had passed. Then I moved on. Now, somehow, Lo Naveena has brought me back to that dream.”

Reality television also widened his reach. Sajju admits that his stint on Bigg Boss Kannada helped him connect with audiences beyond music listeners. But Lo Naveena, he insists, is where he finally feels ownership over his cinematic identity. “Sunil Mysuru, who is part of the team, used to address me as ‘Lo Naveena’ during conversations. Slowly, we felt it had character and flavour. That became the title.”

Directed by Dhanurdhaari Pavan, the film also stars Varsha Giridhar, Reeshma V Gowda, Prakash Thuminad, and Apoorva Siri. Naveen Sajju says the team developed the story together before searching for someone who could visually translate their vision.

“We were looking for a director who understood our world. Since Pavan was already close to us and kept contributing ideas, it naturally became his film, too,” he says.

But if Naveen Sajju speaks emotionally about anyone connected to Lo Naveena, it is producer Keerthi Swamy, who believed in the film when few others did. “I had this strange dream of unveiling the Lo Naveena poster in front of the White House during an Akka Sammelana event abroad,” he says. “The poster had me standing beside a buffalo. People initially said it was not possible. But when I met Keerthi Swamy and explained the film, and told her that a group of friends were coming together to make Lo Naveena, she stepped in and said she would stand by us as producer.”

For Naveen Sajju, the emotional backbone of Lo Naveena lies in its people, many of whom come from theatre and rural performance backgrounds rather than cinema. Having spent over 13 years with the theatre group Nirantara, Naveen Sajju says he deliberately avoided familiar screen faces.

“I always search for new voices and new personalities, even in my songs,” he explains. “For this film too, I wanted fresh artistes. We brought in Abhi, known for his social media reels; Mallaraj Narasinghanahalli from Maddur, who has performed in over 2,000 stage skits; and performers from Chamarajanagar and KR Nagar. We built an entirely fresh team.”

That instinct for discovering grassroots talent also shaped the film’s music. Naveen has brought in folk singers Chammamma and Lakshmamma, who had spent decades singing in fields and village gatherings. “They had been singing for nearly 40 years, but cinema is different,” he says, adding, “They were not trained to follow written lyrics or studio patterns. But there was magic in their voices. We worked hard with them, and that song crossed over eight crore views.”

Even as he transitions into acting, Naveen Sajju speaks like someone whose heart remains in performance traditions rather than stardom. Theatre, he says, gave him clarity about the difference between stage acting and screen acting. “Everything begins and ends between ‘action’ and ‘cut’,” he says. “How honestly you live inside that space matters.”

The biggest challenge, according to him, was making the cast fit the film’s Mandya-rooted dialect organically. At its core, Lo Naveena follows an ordinary young man, someone neither exceptionally smart nor foolish, navigating love, innocence, and the overwhelming experience of entering the city.

“It is about the youth we see around us every day. What happens when someone innocent falls in love? What happens when village simplicity enters urban life? That is the world of the film,” says Naveen, adding that the film is fictional but not without a slice of observation permeating throughout. “Every scene and every poster has a backstory. Even the comedy comes from situations we have seen around us.”

Naveen Sajju has often faced criticism over folk music being commercialised or misused in cinema. Dismissing the idea gently, Naveen says, “Every rooted song has a story inside it. It is from the heart, and I never approach folk culture as a trend.”

Yet beneath the optimism surrounding Lo Naveena lies visible exhaustion. Naveen Sajju reveals that while nearly 100 artistes and technicians stood beside him during the film’s launch phase, the journey closer to release has often felt lonely. “I am fighting alone now,” he admits. “People stop taking calls. Some give reasons. Some disappear. I cannot blame them completely, but yes, the support I expected did not come.”

Instead, Naveen is placing his faith entirely in audiences. “The middle-class audience spends carefully. A family may watch only one film in theatres each month. They will not come for big stars or small stars. They come only if the film is good. That is the truth.”

After singing for more than 400 films, Naveen also reflects on the contradictions of playback singing in Kannada cinema. “Many music directors trusted my voice and gave me opportunities. But strangely, I have never sung for superstars like Shivanna or Sudeep. Sometimes, even for my own compositions, singers from outside are brought in.”

Taking this opportunity to remember the late Puneeth Rajkumar, Naveen says, “Nobody can fill Appu sir’s space. He understood the importance of supporting fresh talent. We were supposed to collaborate too. Unfortunately, it never happened.”

Now, as Lo Naveena prepares for release, Naveen Sajju is no longer speaking only as a singer testing another medium. He sounds like someone trying to build a lasting place within cinema itself. “I want to contribute to every aspect of cinema, and acting is another step in that journey,” signs off Naveen.