Actor Allu Sirish recently got married to businessperson Nayanika Reddy and in his first interview since their wedding, he insists that he is still waiting for the feeling to hit that he is married and a husband. “It’s been just a few days. It’s been happening bit by bit. She has finally moved into my house and that felt different, but it’s been sinking in gradually,” he shares.
Ask him if introducing Nayanika as his wife now gives him butterflies and Allu Sirish says, “Earlier it was easy to introduce her as my girlfriend, then I was getting ready to call her my wife. In between calling her my fiancé was getting too complicated, so I have already been introducing her as my wife since we got engaged.”
While their wedding celebrations were full of memorable moments, it was the subtle moments in between that Sirish remembers most fondly. “The most special moments happened between the functions as I got to spend time with my new family and reconnect with my old friends and family. I have quite a large family of my own and now, it’s even bigger. It was like a movie.”
The couple’s love story began at a pre-wedding party for Sirish’s cousin, actor Varun Tej and his wife, actor Lavanya Tripathi. The two met, started talking and it wasn’t before almost eight months of conversations that they decided to date. “The party was hosted by Nayanika’s best friend. So she even met me in between, did kind of a background check and put in a good word, which really helped,” he laughs, adding that within weeks of dating they started making marriage plans. “There was no wow moment, but sometimes slow burn romances have their own magic,” he says.
Ask the new groom one quality of his wife he wants to learn from and he responds, “She is a smarter judge of people. She can read everything better. I think actors get carried away but she is more practical.” But does he feel a new zest in his work too since getting married? “100% as now I have to pay the bill for two people,” he quips, adding, “When I was solo, there was no pressure on how much I earn or what I do, but now that I have taken responsibility for another person, I really have to step up now. The ambition and hunger has grown in an internalised way.”
Allu Sirish on Allu Arjun and Vijay Deverakonda’s advice
Sirish’s best man at the wedding was his brother, actor Allu Arjun. Did he give him any marriage advice? “He hasn’t given me any marriage advice yet, but during the wedding he told me to make sure to enjoy the moment. He told me that there will be many things that will go wrong, but don’t let it worry you. This is the best moment of my life and I should fully enjoy it and relax. He would be the first person to come at every event and last to leave. Men don’t use words to convey their love, it’s these gestures that do it,” he shares. Actors Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna were amongst the guests at Sirish’s wedding festivities, who themselves got married around the same time. Ask him if Vijay and he had any word as new grooms and he quips, “Vijay told me to take off once the wedding ends because then the dinners will start and you will get no time to do that,” adding, “They had their own wedding events on other days, but they made sure to come for one of the functions at our home.”