Rana Daggubati says Bollywood friend wasn’t aware who’s Prabhas a few years ago: ‘He knew Mahesh Babu as Namrata Shirodkar’s husband’

When asked if South films being the ‘flavour of the season’ also aided their decision, Karan Anshuman cut in to say, “We started work on this show three years back. It wasn’t the flavour then.” His co-director pitched in with a loud laugh, “We anticipated where the country is headed.” Aaron, however, reasoned that it was a natural progression, and also because he’s a South Indian, he decided to go with it. He also said that Rana and Venkatesh both were looking at doing something interesting and challenging in a long format and the timing seemed right.

We then quizzed Rana Daggubati if he too anticipated the big change and how Telugu films will go on to become massive among Hindi-speaking audiences. He replied, “I obviously believed that it would. I mean my second project was a Hindi film, and then of course, I continued with Telugu films. But I always knew that there’s so much similarity between people and the way they build emotions. We are unnecessarily divided by language and knew there would be a time when it will all merge.”

Referring to his film 2017 Ghazi, the actor said that he has always been trying to make films that could cater to audiences in every region. He joked that Telugu people thought he was making a Hindi film and vice versa and while some in both regions thought he was making a Tamil film. “That did create confusion. However, then Baahubali came along. It was the moment I was hoping for. And today, it has all changed,” Rana added.

The Bheemla Nayak actor went on to share a hilarious conversation he had with a friend in Mumbai a few years back. The said person, also from the film industry, did not know Prabhas and knew of Mahesh Babu in a very different context.

“I was away for a few years while filming for Baahubali, so when I met this friend, I told him about the film. When he asked who was playing the titular role, I said Prabhas, and he was like ‘Who’s Prabhas?’ I didn’t know how to explain that to him so told him the names of his few films. He had not watched any of those films and then he told me something really crazy. He said the only Telugu actor I know is Chinu’s husband. I was wondering what he meant and then I realised that Chinu was Namrata Shirodkar. I was shocked that they knew of Mahesh Babu in that sense. I told him just wait for four-five years, and an army of us will land up here,” Rana recalled with a huge smile.

The actor added that he bumped into the same friend a few days back and told him how they have all arrived, and he’s also now doing a full-fledged show. He said that he had been hoping for this moment to come and it makes him ‘grateful and happy’. “It’s heartening how we are accepting of each other’s cinema and watching so much content.”

Reflecting on what led to cinema from the south winning hearts across, Rana Daggubati said, “Firstly, there’s something innately Indian among all of us. There’s a certain sense of value, culture and sense of family ingrained in all of us. I guess South Indian films were capturing them to a larger degree than the cinema you got here. Also, we are all accepting of newer things. See if we made similar films like Mumbai, you wouldn’t watch it. Also, the south is not just one, there are four-five film industries, so the audience consistently got a lot of variety.”

Rana Naidu also stars Surveen Chawla, Sushant Singh, Abhishek Banerjee, Gaurav Chopra, Ashish Vidyarthi and Rajesh Jais. It will drop on Netflix on March 10.