Chennai, Aug 15 (IANS): The secret of a lasting career is doing a variety of roles believes southern actor Naveen Chandra, who made his cinematic debut as an obsessive lover in Telugu romantic-drama "Andala Rakshasi".

Naveen will now be seen as a Maoist-turned-common man in Tamil-Telugu bilingual "Dalam" and as a construction labourer in Tamil drama "Sivappu".

"I have just started my career and it's important for me to do a variety of roles to ensure that audiences don't get bored of me. Luckily, all roles I have picked up so far have been extremely different from one other and this I believe will boost my career," Naveen told IANS.

Explaining his role in "Dalam", Naveen said: "It's the story of an ex-naxalite who struggles to live a normal life. It's an emotional role and we spent nearly a month shooting in the forest and some villages".

He says the technicians of "Dalam" deserve all the credit.

"To shoot in extreme conditions, especially in the forest, is not easy. Technicians of my film ('Dalam') worked really hard and I think they deserve more credit than me. We couldn't have pulled off without them," said Naveen.

For his role in "Sivappu", Naveen lived incognito as a labourer for two weeks.

"It's a realistic role and I wanted to do 100 percent justice to it. I worked as a labourer in my friend's construction unit for nearly two weeks. I asked him not to tell others that I'm a hero. I learnt so much in the process that I would have never learnt had I not worked as a labourer," he added.