Malayalam film ‘Maharaja Hostel’ has two content creators in lead roles

For popular content creators Akhil Sha and Akhil NRD, Maharaja Hostel, directed by Telengana director Charu Wakan is an important film. Although they have been a part of other films in minor roles, this is their first major one. And with this outing come expectations and apprehensions. 

With the number of content creators becoming actors being part of extremely successful films, the pressure is understandable. The two Akhils started their content creation journey much before it became mainstream. Akhil NRD started with Tik Tok, sometime post 2015, while Akhil Sha pinpoints the year to 2018 when started posting content as “time pass” when he was studying engineering. Then COVID-19 happened, when everything changed and content creation boomed, their videos clicked and they were on a roll. Akhil NRD quit his Merchant Navy job to pursue a career in content creation.

They were approached by the film’s team for their first lead roles in a feature film. “Remember we spoke about this the last time we shot for a commercial together? We told each other that it would be great if both of us could work together again, like in a movie!” says Akhil Sha, who has around 502k followers on Instagram. Akhil NRD has 1.7 million followers. 

When they started in their careers as creators, they say, there was no expectation of making a career in films. They were doing something that was fun, they were enjoying and making a living out of it. However, with filmmakers looking at social media for new faces, who had some degree of talent, they started getting calls for films. So far they have supporting roles, but this may well be their big break as leads in the film. And they had to prepare for it.

Acting workshop

As part of that they attended a month-long acting workshop to get them ready for the roles. The trailer suggests a horror-comedy, and since both create comedy-based content, wouldn’t it have been a cakewalk? “No, no way. The character of Reels is very different from acting in a film. The meter is not the same, you cannot compare the two just because both are in the comic vein,” they say.

Maharaja Hostel is about three college students who live in the hostel with a ‘warden’ and what transpires once they move in. “Initially it is all laughs, but things get serious well into the action,” says Akhil NRD. 

Akhil Sha adds, “One of the harder things to do was maintaining the continuity. Because, when you are creating content for Reels, that is not a problem. Need I say it is different for a film because you can’t just switch off, it is for a longer duration.” The workshop took them through their scenes, and had them rehearsing each scene which made their job easy.  

With a couple of days left for the release, they are keyed about it but they are cautious in parts. Why? They have a following on Instagram, which means they are not ‘new faces’ in the conventional sense of the term. 

“When it comes to content creation we are, what might be considered, ‘senior’. This means we may not have the recall some of the newer folks might have. We may not get the kind of hype that they get,” Akhil and Akhil say. “With all the fans that come, we have our fair share of haters too!” 

Maharaja Hostel is playing in theatres