Acting! Who me? Never, says Ram Gopal Varma

NEW DELHI - Filmmaker, singer and now author Ram Gopal Varma has left no stone unturned to prove his versatility, but if there is one zone this daring man dreads to enter, it’s acting.

“I clamour whenever I see the camera (from the front) so there is no way that (acting) will happen. No. I will never act… ever,” Varma, 48, told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

But that does leave scope for taking his singing debut further - he took to the mike to lend his voice to a song in the Telugu version of his two-part action-thriller “Rakta Charitra”.

“No, No, No, No. It was just for one of the songs for the movie, that is it. I’m not doing it again,” clarified Varma and pointed out, “And that was not there in the first part, but it is there in the second part.”

Released Friday, “Rakta Charitra - Part II” is a trilingual in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Not many might have noticed, the blunt and on-the- face speaking filmmaker also made a debut as a narrator with the Telugu version of part one and continues his stint in the second outing too.

Starring Vivek Oberoi in the lead as slain Andhra Pradesh leader Paritala Ravi, it marks the Bollywood debut of Tamil superstar Surya as his nemesis Suri. Shatrughan Sinha, Kota Srinivasa Rao and Radhika Apte also star in pivotal roles.

The firsts, however, don’t end here for Varma as the regular blogger and active Twitterati has also wielded the pen for what is being touted as an unconventional autobiography “Naa Ishtam” (”My Wish”) in Telugu.

“It is not really an autobiography. It is a collection of my thoughts and stories behind how my films got made and those kind of articles. There is a lot of new stuff in it,” he said.

If you thought this was it for the filmmaker - there’s more. Varma’s debuts don’t end until the self-confessed Sridevi fan directs the “goddess of beauty”.

“I’d love to direct Sridevi. There is no concrete subject that I have right now for her but that is something I have in the back of my mind,” said the director, who dedicated his Bollywood film “Rangeela” to the actress.

But has he approached her?

“No. Not really… Not yet.”

Talk of Varma and one can’t evade the most obvious question - his love-hate relationship with filmmaker Karan Johar.

“There is nothing between us. We are just making fun. There is nothing else,” he asserted.

But what about the constant potshots they take at each other?

“Let’s leave it now. It’s always the same answer I give and the same answer he gives and it comes out that we take potshots. We are bored to death with it now. Let’s finish this matter off,” he replied agitatedly.

Leaving everything aside, apart from his “affinity for hard hitting subjects” like crime, politics and horror, Varma is known for his expertise at simultaneously dabbling in multiple projects.

His platter as usual is full of “Phoonk 3″, “The Business Man”, “Department”, “God And Sex”, a remake of the Malayalam movie “Rajakeeyam” and two 3-D ventures of which one is titled “Amma”.