Cinema is a risky business; it’s not a place for those who want to play safe: Raj B Shetty

As actor-filmmaker Raj B Shetty gears up for the release of his next – a multi-starrer in which he shares screen space with actors Shivarajkumar and Upendra, he settles into a conversation about his pas sion for films, storytelling and his connect with the au dience. Excerpts:

What is it about 45 that made you want to take it up? What can the audience expect?

45 is a very different cinematic experience. It’s more com mercial in its approach, but that doesn’t mean we’ve com promised on making a good film in this effort to effort to cater to the larger, mass audience. The sensibility re mains intact. Overall, it’s a very distinct experience as cinema — that’s what audiences can expect.

Do you feel more scripts today are moving away from formula and towards realism and thought-driven storytelling?

It’s always the people who decide. Audiences dictate what cinema becomes, not the other way around. When films that take a different route suc ceed, it gives filmmakers the confidence to trust the voice inside them. That voice wants to tell stories in new ways, in new dimensions. With 45, director Arjun Jan ya is extremely coura geous when it comes to visualising and dream ing big. That courage comes because people are open to change. Peo ple change first, and the industry follows.


But isn’t it also cyclical? Do you think films change people too?

Absolutely — it’s a cycle. You can’t really pinpoint where it begins. Take someone like Upendra. I don’t think audiences first decided they wanted ‘Upendra’. His films were revolutionary for their time — Om, A, Upendra. Those films changed how people thought.What’s fascinating is that even distributors often can’t predict a film’s fate. Audiences know from the very first show what a film is about, and they take it forward. That’s happened with many of my films — word of mouth carries them.

That brings me to your choices. What goes through your mind when you decide to do a film?

It’s very simple — if it’s something I haven’t done before, it excites me. I don’t want to walk paths I already know. I want to remain a student of cinema till the very end. This field gives you new people, new characters, new ex periences every day. The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know. For instance, in Landlord, I play a character with a kind of cruelty and strength I’ve never portrayed before. I don’t know how to approach him — and that scares me. That fear, those butterflies in the stomach, are essential. I like it when each role pushes me into unfamiliar territory.

There’s a theory that there are only seven kinds of stories. Do you believe that?

Absolutely. But storytellers are different. There are male and female voices, but not everyone with a male voice is S P Balasubrahmanyam. Even with SPB, there was space for Yesudas — and now for many others. Stories have voices too. My experience of love, violence, or life will never be the same as yours. That uniqueness is originali ty and the moment we imitate others; we reduce our own voice.

You’ve worked with the same core team for years. How important is that?

It’s crucial to have people who challenge you and keep you sane. Success gives your opinions more weight than they deserve. You need genuine people who still see you as who you were on day one. This is a field where we come in to tell stories but are easily carried away with various things like becoming a star, you want safety or some such thing. In this process, what often happens is people remove those who question them and surround themselves with yes-men. Five years later, they’re outdated and alone. A good team protects you from that. Would you say this is a good time for Kannada cinema in terms of storytelling?

I don’t believe in good or bad times. Cinema is al ways in a state of change, and that change takes decades, not months. If out of 230 films only three work, we can’t say that the industry is changing. We need at least 10 or 12 films that au diences genuinely watch and celebrate. Those films inspire the next generation of film makers. That’s when real change happens.

Is it easy for you to connect with people, probably who do not align with your thoughts?

I can connect with anyone. I can speak to a killer, can see myself with him. See, we push evil from us. We think that evil is somewhere outside us, and that we are probably the best people around. That is not true. If you give ` 5 coin to a person, you will use that action to construct a personality inside you, and think that you are a good person. But you would have reprimanded a security guard just because he did not stand up when you passed by. But you tend to edit that, and highlight the ` 5 coin act to make your self look great. Whoever that person is — saint or sinner — they are all representa tions of us, with small pluses and minuses. When you understand that, you can truly listen to and understand anyone.



How do you ensure an equal, open space for diverse opinions within your core team?

Your team members should be your friends. Then, the reason why you are working in cinema should align. If everybody is working to make you a bigger star, then there’s a problem in the foundation itself. There shouldn’t be hierarchy in these conversations. Roles may differ, but voices shouldn’t. If everyone’s goal is to tell an authentic story, the foundation stays strong.

Inspiration could be a double-edged sword as there’s often stagnation when certain genres become dominant because of one film has become a success. How does cinema move beyond that?

Cinema is one of the riskiest businesses, yet everyone wants to play it safe. Ironically, the biggest risk is making films safely. Telling something new looks risky, but I don’t see it that way. If I keep doing Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana again and again, or replaying characters like Shettihalli Subramanya, I’ll lose interest in cinema itself. Every industry follows trends — Malayalam thrillers, Tamil ultra-violence — but we’ve consciously avoided that. We did Ondu Motteya Kathe, then Garuda Gamana, then Swathi Muthina Male Haniye. There is no genre connection here. We want authenticity, not imitation.

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