The Show Must Go On

HIS GRANDFATHER Daggubati Ramanaidu produced over 150 films, so it is only fair that Ramanaidu aka Rana Daggubati is the unofficial ambassador of the Telugu film industry. Whether it was introducing SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali universe to the Mumbai film industry or Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD to the world, Rana was the man of the hour. The star antagonist of Baahubali 1 and 2, the man who took on his uncle Venkatesh in Netflix’s thrill-filled Rana Naidu, the host of an eponymous talk show on Prime Video, the presenter in India of Payal Kapadia’s Grand Prix winning All We Imagine As Light, the anti-hero who clashes with Rajinikanth’s police officer in the recent Vettaiyan, and now the sup­porter of a tequila brand, Rana is all this and more.

It doesn’t hurt that he is related to much of the film industry in Hyderabad. Venkatesh is his uncle, his aunt Lakshmi Daggubati was actor Nagarjuna’s first wife, which makes Naga Chaitanya his cousin. He is best friends with actors Ram Charan and Sharwanand.

But Rana is not defined by his family and friends, as much as he is by the stories that have raised him. The myths he heard from his grandmother and the modern myths he imbibed from the big screen have combined to make him the storyteller he has become. The story of Hiranyakashyap, the man who takes on Vishnu, is as exciting to him as the Star Wars franchise, and one can see the perfect blend in his artistic choices—he is an investor in the Amar Chitra Katha comics holding com­pany and is excited to brandish the light sabre from Star Wars that he bought in class ten, which has pride of place in his office, “Mythol­ogy and folklore have been my earliest fascinations right from when I was eight or ten,” he says. “My mom was a big fan of Amar Chitra Kathas and I understood mythology as stories even before I un­derstood them as gods or deities.”

His friend and producer, Shobu Yarlagadda, says Rana is truly many things rolled into one. “Despite coming from a well-established, multi-generational film family, he remains incredibly grounded, accessible, and friendly. At heart, he’s an entrepre­neur—always brimming with ideas and the drive to bring them to life. This rare combination of qualities allows him to seamlessly connect with people across geographies, industries, and interests. Naturally, he has become the go-to person for bridging gaps and bringing people together across a wide spectrum,” he adds.

It is something he has been doing from the beginning of his career. Even as he was making his Telugu film debut as a young political heir in Sekhar Kammu­la’s Leader (2010), he was also shooting for his Hindi debut, as Bipasha Basu’s guitar strumming boyfriend in Dum Maaro Dum, directed by Rohan Sippy. Says Daggubati, “While I was playing a politician in Telugu, I was a musician in the north. Cinema has always been my life.” Sippy has remained a friend and marvels at his screen presence but also his ability to look beyond his role at the big picture. “He is cut from a different cloth, and was a successful entrepreneur before he got into acting.’’

RANA AND HIS friends are what Hindi cinema used to be 30 years ago, says Sippy, “big stars coming together, helping each other, focused on making the best cinema possible.” Audiences are deeply invested in their heroes in Telugu cinema and have been for generations in what film scholar SV Srinivas has described as a feudal connection. NT Rama Rao Jr is the grandson of NT Rama Rao and nephew of Balakrishna; Mahesh Babu is the son of superstar Krishna, film star, studio owner and former Congress Member of Parliament; Prabhas is the nephew of Krishnam Raju, film star and former BJP minister at the Centre; Ram Charan is the son of Chiranjeevi. This is not even the complete list of the film, business, and political families which have also been connected through marriage and which preside over the industry. It is a connection that the new genera­tion has nurtured, chasing individual success but also celebrating collective achievements.

The camaraderie on Prime Video’s The Rana Daggubati Show is difficult to fake. It comes from years of knowing each other, sharing each other’s dreams and workspaces, whether it is his Naga Chaitanya or Chay, as he is known, or Dulquer Salmaan, whom he first met when he went to meet his dad, the great Mammootty in Kochi. The show gives us a glimpse into Rana’s whirlwind brain, his interest in AI, in visual effects, in cars, and his great love, food. His cure for a bad stomach? A sizeable portion of haleem.

Pooja Shetty, producer, calls Rana a “dear old friend”. He’s fun, funny and always has a unique way of looking at challenges, be it personal or profes­sional. His advice is usually far from the standard. It comes from a positive place. It is practical, no nonsense, no drama and straight. From a young age, she says, he has been deeply entrenched in cin­ema, tech and learning and had always been ahead of his time.

“Rana has friends not only in Telugu and Tamil film industries but in Hindi, Malayalam and other languages. He has friends in tech, in retail, across industries across the country and I’ve never once heard him say a single negative thing about anyone. It’s almost impossible in the movie business. His mind is in a million things. Sometimes it feels like he’s a Silicon Valley export trying to make sense and unify the Indian movie business. He’s a smart businessman and a great friend to have in your corner.”

FOR THE GENERAL audience, his biggest calling card remains Baahubali. He says: “The film didn’t change just my life; it changed Indian cinema forever. The scale of thought has changed. The movies we make have changed. This impact is no less than what Star Wars did to the West. It led to the rise of technology and visual effects. Post Baahubali, Telugu cinema is five times bigger than it was, because of the trained workforce and the theatrical possibility. It opened new markets. We had been here before with Rajamouli’s Eega (2012) but we hadn’t platformed it well.”

It is a film that also set the bench­mark for a certain kind of look—mus­cular and hirsute—which has been imitated in various ways since. Author Balaji Vittal, who calls Rana “Telugu Cinema’s Man in India”, says his brawny physique makes him an easy pick for He-Man roles like the one in Baahubali, but he has worked on himself to slip eas­ily into roles of substance too. “Rana is like a sportsman or a musical artist who works on himself constantly to sharpen his art,” he says.

Cinema is a visual medium, says Rana, so when a director like Rajamouli tells you that Bhallaladeva is a man who can kill a bison with his bare hands, “You have to look as big as the bison,” says Rana who stands at 6 feet two inches. “Right after Baahubali I had to play N Chandrababu Naidu in the NTR biopic, NTR Kathanayakudu (2019), for which I had to lose weight. Each of these exercises is exciting, whether it is go­ing back in time or playing someone relevant. I spent a lot of time with Naidu and he was very happy with it.”

The actor himself is too busy spin­ning around in his universe of dreams to stop and savour the compliments. Cinema for him has always been the closest thing to magic. “You can trans­port people into another universe, and whenever I pick a movie, I am looking for that element, whether it is going into a war, a jungle, or underwater. You’ve got to go places if you want to come and see me in the movies. Cinema is the only way you can live in a time you heard or read about,” he says.

He can transcend cultures intel­ligently, whether he is explaining his obsession with the first Telugu film to be made, Bhakta Prahlada, with SV Ranga Rao, one of his favourite actors, playing Hiranyakashyap, or using AI to reimagine a favourite car. It is that kind of rooted cosmopolitanism which gives the best of Telugu cinema its wings. Post Baahubali, he says, if there is a dream there is a way to make it come true with workflows and visual effects. “It’s time for the world to view Indian culture as it is,” he says.

He sees himself as a storyteller who sits on his desk and gets the job done, whatever it is. “I became an actor because my desk job is pretty boring. I must run an office, handle employees, do MIS reports, and that’s not what I like. Being an actor gives you so much power. You get to be someone else. In every film I look completely different. I wanted that growing up. The approach or ethic is the same whatever I do,’’ he says. The story, he says, will decide which way it will be told and in which language. “Language has ceased to matter,” he says.

Visual effects producer, entrepreneur, producer, even a cameo star setting himself up in Housefull 4 (2019), Rana Daggubati shows how an actor can don many a hat with aplomb.

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