September 26 , 2006

I have been a fan of Nagarjuna ever since my Engineering days and when I came back to India to try and make movies, I got lucky when Director Puri Jagannath has introduced me to him. When Jagan told me that he is hiring me to assist him on sets and help him write dialogues for his English film ‘Soudamani’ that Nag was supposed to star in, I was truly buoyed. It was my first brush with any Star of Telugu cinema really and when I got to finally meet Nag sir over a discussion at Sarathi studios, I was floored by the humility that he displayed in his demeanor. Jagan was equally humble too, I must add. I observed that Nagarjuna is an intelligent man who listens to his team carefully before airing his views. I liked him instantly. Soudamini never happened due to multiple reasons but Nag sir was generous enough to say that I could ask him for an appointment whenever I have a script for him and gave me his personal number. I guess he liked me too. It took me an year before I finally called him when I felt confident enough to narrate a story. He invited me to his home for the narration and even had a producer ready, just in case he liked the story. Unfortunately he could not connect to the material that I had at that time, my narration was perhaps a disaster too, I was too tense and just not in my elements. No probs, he told me, ‘you can come back to me anytime with 15 minutes of some other material and if I like it, we shall take it from there’, he consoled me. We chatted for a while on what he was looking for, and then I left. Great man! Admirable really, to trust and encourage someone who has never made a Film before!

The following is my tribute to Nagarjuna, the actor, on the eve of his Film Boss. I don’t think Nagarjuna ever got the kind of critical acclaim that he really deserves for his acting prowess. It is amazing to realize that the younger Akkineni has in fact performed admirably in all possible genres that one could think of. If he has played Majnu as a lover-boy torn with the guilt of suspecting his girl of infidelity, Gitanjali is a tragic love story where he played a dying man in love with a dying girl. Nag played Prakash with tremendous sensitivity and mischief. Not easy by any means. He followed it up with the rebellious student Shiva who takes it upon himself to fight the goondaraj that is rampant in college politics and in general in the society, in what is arguably his most powerful performance till date. Around the same time, he was holding his own admirably against the Big B in Khuda Gawah, a tremendous achievement in itself. He later reinvented himself as a man with tremendous comic timing in the delightful ‘Hello Brother’ which was liked by both the classes and the masses. If you thought Hello Brother was loud, he showed us he could be subtle as well with his superb comic timing as the handsome Manmadhudu. It is very difficult to imagine that Ninne Pelladatha and Annamayya came within a few months of each other. He played the irresistible greeku veerudu character with ease in Ninne Pelladatha and then followed it up with his unbelievably realistic portrayal of the great devotee Annamayya. He later played the character of Ajay Devgan’s Hindu father with pride and dignity in Mahesh Bhatt’s autobiographical Zakhm. In Santhosham which was his comeback vehicle, he has played a role that is very very difficult to pull off. He first plays a man in love who had to marry his girl against her parents’ wishes, he later endures her death in an accident, plays a single father, rediscovers love in his ex-wife’s cousin Shreya, and then gives it all up for the sake of his son and his in-laws. That is a tremendous character arc and Nag played it to perfection, no wonder audiences lapped it up and embraced him. This marked a stream of successes for Nag till date except Super. Even in Super, he played the character of bank robber with a lot of style and charisma. I told him that I had problems with the Film Super but not with his interpretation of the character.

Acting is a very perceptive thing. A character can be played in many different ways, most actors know that. It is the interpretation that you give it as an actor, is what makes you stand out. Nagarjuna knows that. He has done it many times before and I am sure he would have done it again with his Boss to be released in a few hours. Here is wishing Boss good luck!

Hari Yelleti articles from Ticket to Fame series:
• The Sitcom Syndrome
• Of herds and shepherds
• What goes inside
• An Ode to Honesty
• Riding the movie express
• Flirting with Mallika Sherawat
• I am gonna be next Mani Rathnam