A man of cinema — that was Gulshan Devaiah’s first impression of Rishab Shetty when they met in 2019. The impression only strengthened when he saw Kantara (2022) and was admittedly blown away by it. “We tried to work together on two or three films, but it didn’t happen. I knew he’d call me someday. When he did, he said, ‘I’ve written a part for you’,” recalls Devaiah, who is being widely praised for his performance as the eccentric King Kulashekara in Kantara A Legend: Chapter 1. 

Devaiah vividly remembers Shetty’s narration of the mythological drama. “When Rishab narrated it, I thought, ‘If I don’t do this, I’m an idiot’. I knew it wasn’t the biggest part or that I wasn’t the protagonist, but the main attraction was Rishab — his passion towards telling his stories. You learn by working with such people.”
Kantara A Legend: Chapter 1 marks Devaiah’s Kannada debut. Not many know that the actor hails from Karnataka. “I belong to Kodagu. I grew up speaking the language, so what a debut this is,” he exclaims.