Tollywood actor Rana Daggubati has a way of keeping you on your toes when you speak to him. Also, we notice that the 34-year-old star with chiselled good looks often leaves you wondering if he is serious or joking. When we met him during the campaign shoot of the third edition of Chandon Party Starter Campaign, which honours stalwarts in the respective fields, he first seemed to shrug it away! He asks with a grin, “So you don’t think, I am good enough, do you ?” but quickly adds “I was joking! This kind of recognition is always good, it means that I have been doing something right.” The maverick movie star is always keen on pushing the envelope. The Baahubali actor, who is also an entrepreneur and co-founder of Anthill Studio that deals with entertainment start-ups has now taken up the mantle of director for the recently launched Amar Chitra Katha learning centre. ACK Alive — spanning an area of across 10,000 sq ft adjacent to Ramanaidu Studios, Jubilee Hills, was once constructed to be a visual effects studio.
The self-confessed comic book and superhero enthusiast is a big fan of the Marvel universe and wants the Indian superheroes to be talked about as well. The Ghazi Attack star says, “That’s the real reason I have decided to associate with my favourite childhood comic series — Amar Chitra Katha, as a director on the board. I am trying to find a way to tell these stories we grew up with, in a modern way. The comic book hero I love the most is Hanuman. While I was growing up he was the biggest superhero I would look up to.”
Even though Rana might not have played a superhero character online yet, he has seamlessly essayed roles of an antagonist and protagonist — in films like Baahubali and Ghazi. When we ask him if he finds it hard to switch from the evil Bhallaladeva to a commander of the navy, Arjun Varma in Ghazi, he promptly tells us, “I look at films as a medium of storytelling. I am happy to play any and all roles where I feel that the story is good. I just want to continue to do good cinema and enjoy every role,” shares the actor, adding, “I come from a family of producers and that’s somewhere in my blood. Acting is my passion so I enjoy every part of it,” says the actor, who has also taken up the role of an entrepreneur in the last couple of months.
“This is something new that I’ve experimented with and avenues like augmented reality, blockchain and emerging technology, where I have invested in, makes every day of mine a learning process,” says the T’town heartthrob who will soon be seen in the fourth franchise of Housefull, which will be his first role in a full-fledged comedy. And when we asked him if he prepped hard for this one too, as he does so for most of his films, he signed off with a smirk saying, “Not really. If you know me, you’d know that I am quite a funny guy.”
paulami@newindianexpress.com
@Paulami309