50-plus stars breaking new ground

For many years, seasoned Telugu stars like Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna, Nagarjuna and Venkatesh drew flak for repeating themselves and playing it safe with cliched masala entertainers, but now these 50-plus stars are looking beyond their comfort zone.

If Balakrishna essayed the role of a warrior king in “Gautamiputra Satakarni”, now his arch-rival Chiranjeevi is all set do a historical film based on a Rayalaseema freedom fighter in his next film “Uyyalavada Narasimha Reddy”. Meanwhile, Nagarjuna impressed with a quadriplegic role in “Oopiri” and now his colleague Venkatesh swayed audiences with his macho role in “Guru” and raised the bar on Telugu cinema.

“It’s surely a welcome sign, since directors can now sketch new and challenging roles for them. It was a wise decision on the part of the 50-plus stars to do varied roles and hog the limelight to stave off stiff competition from Gen X superstars,” says producer Paruchuri Prasad.

Until some time ago, Balakrishna had confined himself to anger-driven roles, while Nagarjuna and Venkatesh were essaying lover boy and comedy-driven roles, but they are breaking new ground now.

“Balakrishna was the only actor among this group to have dabbled in varied genres including folklore, mythological, social and historical and although he is far ahead of his contemporaries in this aspect, nevertheless, we are glad that other stars are also trying to experiment with roles,” says producer Komineni Venkateswar Rao. Another producer N Padmini has a different take on it.

“Maybe, our T-town middle-aged stars are drawing inspiration from B-town stars like Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar and charting a new course in their careers and there is nothing wrong in being inspired by them,” she says.

Adding a word of caution, distributor M Venkateswara Rao of Krishna district says, “Guru’ was declared a winner because it was made on a shoe-string budget, whereas Nagarjuna’s devotional film `Om Namo Venkatesaya’ was an expensive film, so producers and distributors suffered heavy losses. So, it’s a tight-rope walk for actors and producers with novel themes” he concludes.