Nabha Natesh - The Hyderabadi tapori in iSmart Shankar

Nabha Natesh, who impressed the audience with her performance in Nannu Dochukunduvate (2018), will next be seen on the big screen with Ram in sci-fi actioner iSmart Shankar. The Bengaluru girl hopes to make everyone take notice of her acting skills in the Puri Jagannadh directorial slated for release on July 18.

Nabha will be seen as a civil engineer, who speaks the Telangana dialect and crosses path with Ram's iSmart Shankar. She says her character is something that breaks away from getting typecast. “I have played an attractive girl-next-door role in Nannu Dochukunduvate, but it does not mean I am here to take up only certain kinds of roles. My character in iSmart Shankar comes as a breath of fresh air and you will see me playing a whirlwind Hyderabadi pori with a different body language and tapori attitude,” reveals Nabha. 

Ask her how she got a grip of her character, she says, “I’m a theatre artist and I will start preparing only after I understand the dialogues in the scene paper. Our assistant directors are very helpful as they have recorded the dialogues and sent it across to me for better understanding of pronunciation.”

So, have you dubbed your lines? She replies, “Dubbing is a big responsibility and we have to put in a lot of effort to get the dialect right. If it’s usual Telugu, I would have definitely tried. But, it has a unique slang and me being a Kannadiga, I had some inhibitions about the influence of my mother tongue and didn’t take a chance. Someone else dubbed for me and I got the lip-sync right (smiles).”  

She is happy that her dialogue in the trailer "Warangal lo ucha poyinchina" has got a trail of memes on social media and is unperturbed by the prospect of a backlash from the critics and movie buffs. "It was intended for fun and there is no room for any controversy. I went to Warangal earlier this week and people responded really well to me. The idea is to entertain the audience and I don’t think it would precipitate any problem to the film.”

The film also features Nidhhi Agerwal as the other lead, but Nabha says she has no qualms about doing a film with other female actors as she believes that the story is centered beyond one heroine and a hero. “Except for a song, Dimaak Kharaab, I don’t have any common scenes with Nidhhi, but still we got along really well on the sets. I like her as a person and our long walks at Goa beaches were marvellous,” she says.

Puri follows a template to the way his female leads are portrayed. They are either stalked by the hero, like Aditi Arya (Ism), or a strong character that eventually transforms into an insignificant one, like Neha Sharma (Chirutha), Kajal Aggarwal (Businessman, Temper) or an underdeveloped character essayed by Mannara Chopra (Rogue). But Nabha asserts that her character starts off with a bang, has interesting layers, dialogues and the film is bereft of any vulgarity. "There is nothing to demean woman and there is a romance that defies cliches. You will not see stalking or the hero relentlessly chasing the girl in our film. Interestingly, it was my character that teases iSmart Shankar and gives dhamkis to him.,” she avers.  

On working with Puri and Ram, she says, “Puri is a chilled-out person and is incredibly talented. He gives complete freedom to his actors and extracts best from them. My co-star, Ram appears to be shy but when you know him in person, he is really cool.”

On a question about iSmart Shankar's sequel, Double iSmart, she says, "I don't know if it has some of the original cast in it. You may get all the details after the release of iSmart Shankar."

She has another film, Disco Raja, which also features Ravi Teja in a dual role as father and son. "I am paired opposite young Ravi Teja. I have completed the first schedule and will start shooting for the remaining part soon,” she signs off.