Even as his pan-India movie Kuberaa tastes success, Nagarjuna says makers must be judicious as each story doesn’t have the power to appeal across cultures
Nagarjuna in Kuberaa
For Nagarjuna, there was more than just money riding on Kuberaa. Its success would determine the path ahead for the superstar. With the crime drama having reportedly earned about R81 crore in the domestic market, we can hear the smile in Nagarjuna’s voice as he gets on the call for his first interview post the release. “Kuberaa is different from what I or director Sekhar Kammula was doing before. It was important for the movie to succeed so that we get the courage and strength to do more films with different subjects,” says the actor of the June 20 release that also stars Dhanush and Rashmika Mandanna.
Courage isn’t the only outcome of a successful film. As Nagarjuna puts it, “Success makes you love your job.” This is especially true when one has been working for 39 years. “Longevity is quite difficult to achieve, especially in our field. Success and love for the job go hand-in-hand. I was fortunate that success was always around the corner.”
(L-R) Rashmika Mandanna, Nagarjuna and Dhanush in the film
After almost four decades in the industry, the actor, 65, craves to experiment more. He wants to keep things stimulating for the artiste in him, even though experiments can be risky for the superstar in him. He reflects, “We get caught in the loop that we have to do something exactly like this [to ensure success]. I noticed that in my career, whenever I [repeated myself], I had failures. Trying different things and new characters will always be loved by the audience.”
Nagarjuna has been ahead of the curve in another aspect — he did pan-India films way before they became a phenomenon. “When Shiva came in [1990], I tasted success in Mumbai, Delhi, and across the Hindi-speaking belt. It was fantastic. After COVID, everybody started watching movies in every other language.” The change is welcome, but the senior actor notes that it demands a discerning attitude from filmmakers. “Every film cannot be a pan-India offering. It's very difficult to be familiar with a different culture altogether. These days, a lot of people are failing because they are putting five titles underneath each film. [A pan-India film] requires a lot of planning and a [powerful] screenplay. Why did only Shiva work for me? I have done a lot of other films. They all could have worked, but they didn't. There are only a few films that deserve to be pan-India.”
Moving on, Nagarjuna is prepping for his 100th film. The pressure of a century is quite high, he admits. "I've been trying to avoid it for quite some time, but it is about time that I got to it. Sometimes when I came close to 100, I would immediately subtract all the cameos, and other small roles so that I didn't reach that 100," he laughs. The actor shares the yet-untitled film, to be directed by Tamil filmmaker Ra Karthik, will go on floors July end. "We have been working on it for almost a year now. The film runs over a period from the 1970s to almost 2010. It spans over 35-40 years. A period. It's a very classical kind of a film, a man's growth and journey," he says.
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