Dheekshith Shetty on The Girlfriend’s Nadhive: I was scared if I could pull it off

Dheekshith Shetty and Rashmika Mandanna’s contemporary dance in The Girlfriend’s first single, Nadhive, has found a lot of love

Nadhive, the first single from Rashmika Mandanna’s Telugu film The Girlfriend dropped on July 16. The Hesham Abdul Wahab composition, which he has sung as well, features Rashmika and her co-star Dheekshith Shetty in an elaborately choreographed contemporary dance form. The 3.5 million views the song has amassed in less than 24 hours since it dropped is testimony to how well-liked it’s become, not only because of the catchy composition, but more so for the stunning choreography that the actors pulled off.

Nadhive's fresh choreography and pairing receives praise

Rashmika Mandanna and Dheekshith Shetty in Nadhive from The Girlfriend

There was a lot of praise for the fresh choreography and the pairing, with netizens opining that Rashmika and Dheekshith look beautiful together, making them an onscreen couple to look forward to. They also pointed out that Rashmika absolutely rocked, but has just as much love pouring in for Dheekshith. Comments like, “Dheekshith is awesome with his moves”, to, “Dheekshith’s screen presence and expressions are lit”, “Dheekshith’s charm is on point”, were among the many positive notes that came for the Kannada actor.

When OTTplay checked in with Dheekshith about the positive response to the song, the actor was in the midst of another film shoot and had not seen any of the comments. “I am glad that people are not finding fault with my moves. I was very scared if I could pull it off. We had to practice a lot to get the movements right,” said the actor, about his first attempt at contemporary dance.

The Girlfriend is Dheekshith’s first film with Rashmika and the actor has been quoted as saying in earlier interviews with OTTplay that the Rahul Ravindran directorial will be a gamechanger for the actress, who began her film journey with the Kannada movie Kirik Party (available on JioHotstar via OTTplay), as he’s presenting her in a never-before-seen role.