Rana Daggubati says Rana Naidu was a ‘pandemic idea’ that made him ‘less popular’: ‘Happens very rarely’

In the conversation, Rana said that Rana Naidu was a “pandemic idea” as they were not certain about the immediate future of cinemas and theatrical releases. “Somewhere, it was a pandemic idea where we were like what do we do now? We don’t know when cinemas are opening up, we might not have a job for a couple of years. How do we get cracking on this?” he said. Rana said that they started working on an idea for a series in Hyderabad but soon realised that no one in the team had ever worked in a long format before as they all came from the world of movies. “Once the adaptation of Ray Donovan came, that was easier for me to understand,” he said.

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Speaking about creator Karan Anshuman, Rana said that he was a “big fan of Mirzapur” and mentioned that Karan had “a very interesting way that he saw culture in Bombay which wasn’t depicted before in cinema or any form so I think that made me get on.”

Rana said that he liked how the show was taking on taboo topics and presented them in a mainstream way. “I was always interested in topics that are taboo to society that you can tell in a very mainstream form. Because at some point, we try to tell it in cinema and it becomes very arthouse, it becomes a sub-genre in some ways. But this had child abuse in a gangster drama set inside of a family. To me, that was very interesting. It’s family drama that everyone gets. It has topics that you don’t want to talk about or spoken very boldly and harshly so that was the first reason I got onto it,” he said.

At an earlier event in Hyderabad, Venkatesh assured the viewers that the second season won’t offend anyone “This time, I will be much more careful. I intend not to offend anyone this time. Last time, people from our region got affected, but, I assure you, this time it will be good. However, it will have a tinge of mischief,” he said.