S Krishna on bringing Suniel Shetty on board

For Suneil Shetty in Pailwaan, his very first Sandalwood film

Suniel Shetty may have spent most of his life in Mumbai and working in Bollywood films. But he continues to maintain close affinity with his roots in Mangaluru and Karnataka. There have been many attempts by film makers to get him to act in Kannada movies which had to be aborted.

Finally, it is in S Krishna’s Pailwaan that his making his Sandalwood debut. The look of the actor was revealed on Wednesday evening by Kichcha Sudeep. Shetty plays a wrestler in the much-anticipated film being made in five languages.

Krishna had no hopes about Shetty acting in his film. “It is a very powerful character in the film which has screen space throughout. When I wrote it, it was for an actor who was tough, physically strong also mature. It was Sudeep who suggested Suniel Shetty’s name. He called him. Suniel Shetty was busy with many things and working in a film from the South was the last thing on his mind. But when he heard the story, he was game. He asked how I would adjust the shooting schedule to his availability.

I said, I will shoot only when he is free,” Krishna recalls how he managed to get Shetty on board. Sunil Shetty’s Bollywood co-star who is also hails from coastal Karnataka acted in a couple of Kannada films alongside Ravichandran and Upendra. She had dedicated these to her grandmother who insisted that she act in Kannada films.

Suniel Shetty was apprehensive about how well he would speak Kannada. “He did not want people to feel bad if he spoke wrong Kannada. But you should have seen him during shooting. It was just like he was always in Karnataka. His accent was perfect,” Krishna said. The actor is however yet to dub for the role. Meanwhile Sudeep is starting dubbing for the film on Thursday. He will dub for the film in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. A Malayalam actor is likely to dub for him in Malayalam.

More posters of the film is expected in the next few days. While a teaser of Sudeep wrestling was released sometime ago, the boxing portions have been kept away from public till now. The next poster will show Sudeep from the boxing scenes.

The film was originally planned to be released in Marathi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi and Bengali and not in Hindi. With very good offers for a Hindi release, with the condition that it will not be dubbed in other north Indian languages, the film team has finally decided to go with a total of five language versions. Apart from Kannada, the film will release in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi.