Finding Ondalla...’s Sameera

After making a serious philosophical film like Rama Rama Re, director D Satya Prakash was determined that he will not get stuck in a rut as far as his film career goes. “I did not want to get typecast by following a certain set formula and wanted to mix it up. As a first step, I decided to change my approach and work on a very simple subject, involving ‘innocence’ from the view point a child.But finding that child was easier said than done, as Satya Prakash had a certain idea about how he wanted the character, ‘Sameera’ to be. “We auditioned as many as 1,500 children, most of whom, honestly, I could not fault, because the beauty of working with young ones is that you can mould them the way you want. Yet, for some reason, I was still hungering for more. On the last day of auditions in Mysuru, we had announced pack-up and I had left the venue, when Rohith, who is the star of my film, came with his mother. He was delayed as it took them time to get there from Pandavapura. My associates called me and I asked them to get him to do some stuff and record it. When I came back and saw it, I was blown away by his spontaneity, even though it was far from what I had envisioned. His reactions and how he got into character amazed me. But the issue was that I needed him to be trained for a couple of months before starting the shoot and that would be difficult if he remained in Pandavapura. To my surprise, his parents asked if I could keep him with me for as long as we required for the film and that’s how Rohith came to live with us,” says Satya Prakash.