With no television, strict disciplinary rules, and almost no women in the hostel, the actor never developed a habit of talking to the opposite gender. “I don’t think it was to do with looks, but when you grow up in a boys hostel from age 6 to 15, and other than female teachers, you never seen a girl, this happens. Seeing girls from a distance felt like a concept,” he said.

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He further added, “Women are there and they walk like this, we weren’t allowed to look at each other. It was really strict. We used to spend 10 months in a year in boarding school. We came home only for two months to spend time with our families. There was no TV there and we were only shown one film every two weeks.”

When Vijay came back home, he did not speak to a girl for over two years. “After spending 10 formative years there, when you come back as a teenager with hormones, you are attracted to the opposite gender but you don’t know how they operate. You don’t have the courage to talk to them. First two years of coming back, I didn’t speak to a girl at all. I used to look outside the window in our school bus to avoid talking to the girls,” he expressed.

He continued, “Girls thought it was cool or something so they would call me to sit with them and chat. Because I was scared of looking into their eye, I would look outside the window and talk. My heart would be pounding. But at some point, post my inter second year, I thought to myself that what’s the point of all this fear. So when I went for my B.Com, I went and spoke to the first pretty girl I saw.”

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When Rashmika Mandanna was asked about her experience of growing up in a completely different boarding school, she replied, “I got into the boarding school at a very young age, at age 4. My boarding was co-ed, there was boys and girls hostel, you can have dinners together in different rows. After Class 5, the dining halls were separate. Ever since the beginning, there were interactions with boys. If the seniors said something, we had to listen to them. That’s how our hostel worked.”

The Animal actor recalled that she had to listen to her seniors to stay within the group. “There were people from different parts of the world, and you had to live up to their traditions so that they don’t call you uncool. It’s not bullying, ragging, it’s actually cornering. The surviving skills I have today came from that time. In the industry today, I am doing the same thing I was doing at the hostel back then,” she shared.

The most challenging phase for Rashmika was speaking to people in English, because Tamil was the first language she learnt during early childhood. “When I came to this hostel in Coorg. Suddenly, someone asked me something in English, and I went mum. I didn’t know. It was terrible, I couldn’t communicate in English. I went to the school in Class 4 and was there till Class 10, and by then people had already made their minds. No matter how much you speak in English, people already think ‘You are lesser than us’. I realised that it would be my survival instinct where I just smile to things,” she recalled.

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Even after entering the film industry, she was always indifferent to comments over her language and accent. “When I came to the industry, people commented that I have a different accent or that I’m not a good actor. When something like this happens, and you feel that you have been dealing with such things since a long time. This is nothing new.”

Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda’s next film together is the period action drama Ranabaali. The film is set to hit the theatres on October 16, 2026. It has been directed by Rahul Sankrityan.