Pramod: After Salaar, I was offered an antagonist role that I turned down

Kannada actor Pramod is aware that it is still early days in his film career and yet going by his current trajectory of doing leading man roles, he’s decided that he’d rather do that than play antagonist to another hero. Pramod, who is currently promoting his next release, English Manja, was asked if he’d got any other major pan-India film offer after bagging a pivotal role in Prabhas’ Salaar.

Turns out, Pramod was offered a major pan-India film from Sandalwood, but as the main antagonist’s side-kick. “There are some roles that may not big in terms of screen time or importance, but can still be career-defining, which you cannot let go of. This didn’t feel like that and hence I decided against taking it up. It’s okay; I’m getting enough offers as leading man, so I don’t see the need to do villain roles now. I believe that Kannada audiences like seeing me as a hero, so I want to concentrate on that now. Moreover, once Salaar releases, there will, no doubt, be a lot more offers, so I’m not worried about letting go of some projects,” he says and adds, “That does not mean that I am hung up about only being the protagonist. I am open to doing meaningful characters in multi-starrers too. In fact, there is one such offer, shooting for which was to have taken off, but got pushed ahead.”

Salaar, meanwhile, is a project that Pramod has high hopes on. “It is massive, not just in terms of its scale, but also the cast and crew working on it. I’ve been lucky to get a role that majorly shares screen space with Prabhas and Prithviraj and will be a gamechanger for me. I have another 2-3 days work left on the film, a schedule with which I think shooting of Salaar will be wrapped up,” he had told OTTplay earlier.

But is it true that the Prashant Neel directorial is being presented in two parts? Pramod laughs and says, “Someone recently let slip that Salaar will be a two-part franchise, which, I think is understandable, given the massive scale on which the film has been mounted.”