THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS

Netflix’s Rana Naidu is the latest entry in a growing trend of collaborations between regional film industries

In 2015, Rana Daggubati was part of what would become one of the first pan-India cinematic phenomena, S.S. Rajamouli’s Bahubali films. Seven years later, he headlines Rana Naidu, Netflix’s first show with two Telugu actors. An adaptation of the popular American series Ray Donovan, Daggubati plays the eponymous character who has a fractured relationship with his father (played by Venkatesh Daggubati). “It’s the ‘India’ narrative,” says Daggubati. “It’s Hindi first, and after that you come to other industries.” Nonetheless, the actor hopes that it’s the beginning of many collaborations with entertainment industries in the South. “We are just blown away by the longform format... For us, it’s all very new... Getting into this part of storytelling is fun.”

The proliferation of OTT platforms has facilitated engagement with other language industries; Hindi audiences now have easy access to the latest releases from the South and are more familiar with creators and actors there. Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, ZEE5 and SonyLIV have already released Tamil web series on their platforms. In 2021, Netflix roped in renowned filmmaker Mani Ratnam to helm a short anthology, Navarasa, which saw the participation of multiple directors and actors from Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam industries. With Rana Naidu, Netflix attempts to make further inroads into a lucrative market.

Rana Naidu is also the first time Daggubati gets to work with his uncle, Venkatesh. “When I made it as an actor, I knew I’d do something with him,” he says. However, the scripts that came their way played on the “clichés” that come with being part of a big film family in Telangana. The idea, added Daggubati, was to wait and “do something that no one expects”. An ensemble family drama with a father-son conflict at its core appealed to both. “For a son, a father is the reference point for success, failure, victory.

He’s the internal matrix they follow until they figure things out on their own,” says Daggubati.

The actor described the experience of playing a fixer named Rana as “strangely odd”. “First I thought it was a working title until I realised it wasn’t changing. It started getting odd because everybody is referring to me as Rana, which is both me and also the character,” he laughed. “While [the show is] in a hyper world of the entertainment industry, I could vibe with it. I live in a joint family with my grandparents, dad and siblings, so there’s a certain dynamic I understand.” Surveen Chawla plays Naidu’s wife, with Abhishek Banerjee and Sushant Singh starring as his siblings.

Whether more actors will follow the example of Daggubati, Siddharth (Escaype Live) and Vijay Sethupathi (Farzi) to dive into the OTT world remains to be seen. Daggubati believes there will eventually be more takers among mainstream actors. “What will drive them is when it’s an interesting story that one gets to explore in a different manner and when the big screen is not the place for it.” ■

With the proliferation of OTT platforms, Hindi audiences are now more in tune with content from the South