“During a family vacation in Germany, I would unconsciously adopt a posture. A couple of foreigners would look at me and wonder, ‘Is this guy okay?'” Mahesh recalls, laughing. “That’s when it hit me. I didn’t realize it then, but now that we are filming and he asks me, ‘Mahesh, stay upright,’ it’s very easy to understand that because I went through that whole process last year. And because he knows his method. Now I find it very easy,” he added in an interview with Screen Rant.

‘SS Rajamouli has spoiled me’

Mahesh also received training in Kalari, an ancient form of martial art that originated in Kerala, only to be able to run like Lord Rama does in just two shots of what would make it to the Varanasi final cut. “When I saw the shot, I felt very happy. It was worth it, because those six months of training for that shot were really worth it. The way I walked changed, the way I stood changed, everything changed,” Mahesh told Variety.

The actor confessed that working with Rajamouli in Varanasi had “spoiled” him so much that he would find it extremely difficult to move from the project to the next. “There will be no rehearsals in that one. So I will ask for them. Because they make the action much easier. You can do those action sequences on the set without injuries and without too many mistakes,” argued Mahesh.

Then read: Priyanka Chopra’s only condition for SS Rajamouli’s Varanasi leaves Mahesh Babu ‘unhappy’

Globalizing the Ramayana

“All my films are inspired by the epics of Rama. In this film, I get the opportunity to take a real episode from Ramayana itself and present it this way,” Rajamouli told Polygon. Even in his latest blockbuster, RRR (2022), Ram Charan’s character adopts the silhouette of Lord Rama in a key action sequence.

Rajamouli is therefore not worried about whether referring to the Ramayana would go unnoticed by a global audience. “My job as a narrator is to make you not feel lost, to make the film in such a way that it doesn’t tire your mind. You may not understand the whole story of Rama, but you don’t have to. If you understand the emotions of the characters, you will understand what is happening,” he explained.

So read | SS Rajamouli doubted Priyanka Chopra could make an Indian film after eight years: ‘The first day in Varanasi, she was a fish in water’

Rajamouli said that the most important relationship in the film is between “a father and a son” (inspired by Rama and Dasharatha), as well as between Rudhra (Mahesh Babu) and a mysterious thief named Mandakini (Priyanka Chopra).

Also starring Prithviraj Sukumaran as the main antagonist Kumbha, Varanasi is scheduled to be released in theaters next year on April 7.