Chennai-based actor Daggubati Raja has been inundated with phone calls. His family and friends are happy that he chose to work in NTR: Kathanayakudu and that his role is bringing him accolades. We don’t know if he will be seen in the sequel, Mahanayakudu, but the first part has given him a substantial role, good enough to make an impression on a generation that did not know about NTR’s brother Trivikrama Rao.
Raja’s original name was Venkatesh and since there was another well known actor with the same name in the family, he was called as Raja. We did not see much of him in films in recent years as he moved into the granite business in Chennai. He got into films by chance when he was discovered by Tamil filmmaker Bharathi Raja in the 80s, but once he decided he wanted to make it his career, he took the work seriously. Despite the family’s connections to films,he gradually realised that he wasn’t rising to the next level in films; none of the seven Telugu films he worked in were very successful.. Interestingly, he had done more Tamil films than Telugu.
How long has been away from the camera? “It has been 20 years since I last made my appearance in films. I was not enjoying my work. The characters that I was portraying were not to my liking and it wasn’t encouraging to do roles that were stereotyped. There was hardly anything creative or challenging. Did I miss films? Nothing substantial came up and I got so busy with other work that I didn’t think about films anymore,” he avers.
Balakrishna and Raja
Though he is aware of the huge change in Telugu cinema in terms of content and new directors, he still maintains that he will take up a role only if it’s good.
He recalls, “The casting director of Kathanayakudu called me and said I should do LV Prasad’s role. I called director Krish and said I was looking for something more. He asked me what I was offered and he said there is something else on his mind. As he was seeing Trivikrama Rao’s (NTR’s brother) pictures, he felt I could match his persona. The story and my footage were not discussed on the phone, but he gave me a lot of confidence and said since I was coming back after 20 years, I should just trust him and come on board. Those words were enough for me to take a call. Since the day of the film’s release, there has been so many calls. It feels nice.”
The brief to be himself
We ask Raja if he did any spade work for his role and how easy or difficult was it to return to the camera after two decades? Raja says, “Since I stepped into this film, I’ve been getting calls from different production houses as well. One was from director Bharat Kamma. I thought I should take a call after this movie releases. I took an appointment and met producer Vishweshar Rao, who is well known to NTR’s family. I asked him for Trivikrama Rao’s way of talking, demeanour and other details so that I could go prepared. I asked him many questions but all he said was ‘Ittanne vuntaadaiyya kaani nannu enduku aduguthunnavu. Ninnu Balakrishna ki recommend cheyyamantava?’ I told him I am already in the movie and I need some information, but for every question he replied that Trivikrama Rao was just like me. I was later convinced that there are far more important characters in the film and I shouldn’t be so anxious. But I wanted to make sure that I am perfect. In fact I wanted to work on my looks, the weight, and other details.”
Raja worked for 20 days and it was an eye opener, getting to know the bond between NTR and Trivikrama Rao, right from their young age, their sibling bonding, and their success. He adds, “NTR’s sons did give me an idea about how their babai was. He would take care of NTR’s work completely and you can see on screen of how involved he was with his brother right from his childhood. Once you imbibe strong values and it becomes a habit, you can’t give it up. Writer Sai Madhav Burra did a phenomenal job by building an image for the characters through his words.”