Suniel Shetty explains why he doesn’t take up South films: ‘They cast Bollywood actors in negative roles’

Suniel Shetty shared why he does not take up most South offers.

Suniel Shetty shared why he does not take up many South offers. (Photo: Suniel Shetty/Instagram)

Suniel Shetty, who is proud to be a Mangalorean, was recently asked if he gets any offers from the South film industry and the actor shared without any hesitation that the South films often cast Hindi film heroes as villains, and present them as antagonists, and he does not appreciate that. Suniel shared that while he has appeared in Rajinikanth’s Darbar in a negative role, he only did so because it was his lifelong dream to work with the star.

In a chat with The Lallantop, Suniel said, “I do get offers (from the South) but unfortunately, what happens is, you will notice this trend that we get offers for negative roles. They want to cast the Hindi heroes as powerful… from an antagonistic point of view, (they say) that’s good for the screen and for the audience. And that is one thing that I don’t like.”

He added that he did a film with Rajinikanth only because it was a bucket list moment for him. “I did a film with Rajini sir only because I wanted to tick that box of having worked with him,” he said. Suniel shared that he recently did a Tulu film because he wanted to support local films from Karnataka. “Recently, I did a small Tuku film just to encourage the film which is doing really well, it’s called Jai,” he said. Jai saw him in a cameo appearance. It was reported that Jai was the widely screened Tulu film in recent years. In the first five days of its release, the film made over Rs 3 crore.

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Suniel continued that there is no language barrier in this day and age when it comes to films and content. “Today, there is no language barrier. If there is a barrier, then it’s perhaps because of teh content. If your content is good, it will cross all barriers,” he said.

In 2025, Suniel was seen in Kesari Veer and Nadaaniyan. The actor will next be seen in franchise films Welcome to the Jungle and Hera Pheri 3.

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