Jr NTR says SS Rajamouli kept hibernating flies in fridge while making Makkhi

ITAHARI: JAN. 3 – Before Baahubali made him a household name across India, director SS Rajamouli’s previous foray into the north had been through Makkhi – the Hindi dubbed version of his 2012 Telugu film Eega. On the most recent episode of The Kapil Sharma Show, the stars of his latest film–Ram Charan and Jr NTR–revealed a surprising fact related to that film, that the director would keep flies in his fridge to study them.

Rajamouli had accompanied the cast of his upcoming film RRR–Ram Charan, Jr NTR, and Alia Bhatt–on The Kapil Sharma Show. During the episode, Jr NTR revealed that at one time, Rajamouli kept flies in his fridge. “When you opened the fridge, there were more flies than food,” he joked. When a bemused Kapil asked the reason behind this, Ram Charan elaborated, “He was hibernating them so that he could study them properly. This was when he was making Makkhi.” Rajamouli simply smiled and nodded in agreement.

Flies go into hibernation–a kind of deep sleep–in cold temperatures. Rajamouli apparently used this state to study them in order to make sure that his depiction of the fly in his film was anatomically correct. Upon hearing this, Kapil quipped, “Aap sab ko band kar dete ho (You lock everyone up). When you made Makkhi, you locked the flies up in the fridge. When you made Baahubali, you locked up Prabhas in Film City for five years.”

Rajamouli also revealed that his driver thought he was ‘mad’ to make Makkhi. “My car driver got very angry that I am making a movie on a fly. He said, ‘Have you gone mad? Forget these flies and cockroaches, why can’t you make films with human beings?’” he said.

Eega, which starred Nani, Sudeep, and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, released in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. The south versions of the film were commercially very successful but the Hindi version failed to meet expectations. Despite this, the film earned over 100 crores (Indian Rupees) worldwide.

Rajamouli’s next release RRR was to hit the screens on January 7 but the release has been postponed indefinitely owing to rising Omicron cases in the country. Apart from Jr NTR, Ram Charan, and Alia Bhatt, the film also features Ajay Devgn and Shriya Saran.

-Hindustan Times