Balaji Manohar essays a hardcore Ambareesh fan in Amruth Apartments

Actor and cinematographer Balaji Manohar has been seen in varied and interesting roles in Kannada cinema lately and Amruth Apartments is no different, he says as he opens up about the film, cinema today and more in a candid chat. “I play an auto driver in the film,” Balaji reveals. “What’s special about this guy Rakkappagowda is that he hails from Mandya and is a hardcore Ambareesh anna fan, just like me.When Gururaj Kulkarni told me about the role, it gave me an opportunity to incorporate the khadak attitude of the Rebel Star, which was fun to do."
When it comes to doing newer roles and experimenting, actors have it easier today. “As actors, we always look for opportunities to do performances that are least expected from us. It is easy for one to get typecast, but luckily, newer directors are able to imagine actors in different avatars and bring out something new from them. I am happy I landed a role in Amruth Apartments, where the maker was initially sceptical because of my previous roles and my build. But I reassured him that I don’t come with the assumption that everyone has seen my film and each role is different and it depends on how well it is crafted,” explains Balaji.
Balaji has also been working with independent filmmakers. “The trend of independent filmmakers has increased over the years, thanks to the revolution in digital technology. We still need big-budget studio films because that will help filmmakers dream bigger with regard to the scale of cinema. This will, in turn, help independent filmmakers as it will become economical and bring in greater access to the tools for storytelling. The recent releases have given us a lot of motivation to come out with a release date for Amruth Apartments, especially the post-pandemic releases,” he points out.
Balaji has also worked on projects as a cinematographer. “I always wanted to develop a skill set and that’s how I picked up cinematography. I always considered this as one big umbrella, so writing, filmmaking, acting and cinematography all come under that. Whatever work of yours is more popular, you are hired for that regularly. In my case, it has been acting more than cinematography,” he shares.