Prabhas: Had to cut down on my remuneration for Radhe Shyam

Gearing up for Radhe Shyam’s release, Prabhas talks mid-budget movies that allow him to experiment and choosing scripts for pan-India audience

Call it the Baahubali (2015) effect, but expectations soar high when a Prabhas-starrer is up for release. The actor is aware of the pressure that sits on his strong shoulders, although his calm smile may belie it. As we sit down to chat about his upcoming movie, Radhe Shyam, we begin our conversation by asking him about the biggest challenge of being a pan-India star. “Choosing the perfect pan-India script is the toughest part,” he says, in a heartbeat. “So far, only three films [from the south industry] have been pan-India hits — Baahubali, KGF: Chapter 1 [2018] and Pushpa [2021]. Tomorrow, we will make more of such films. But it’s difficult to crack it in the beginning. It will take us four to five years to get there.”

The beginning, if it may be called so, has been promising. If SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus put the focus squarely on south cinema, Allu Arjun’s Pushpa set the cash registers ringing at a time when Hindi movies were struggling in cinemas due to the pandemic. Prabhas doesn’t view Arjun as competition, instead seeing him as an ally for a larger goal. “Allu did an amazing job in Pushpa. The [nationwide attention] has just started, but in a way, I feel it’s too late. It has been 100 years to Indian cinema. Now, we need to do much more; we need to fight with bigger [film] industries around the world.”

The superstar hopes to realise the ambition, one film at a time. For now, his attention is on the bilingual that features Pooja Hegde as the leading lady. The love story comes as a change of pace after his big-budget ventures. “After Baahubali, a lot of big films came my way. But I wanted to do a love story. [One needs to be mindful of] the commercial elements too. I needed to cut down on the budget and my remuneration for Radhe Shyam and Saaho [2019]. We wanted to raise the bar with these films. So, on my part, I need to do something for them. I love to see myself [in big-ticket films] like Adipurush, but I also want to experiment.”

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