Saaho actor Prabhas revealed in an interview at the backstage of the Royal Albert Hall that Ram Gopal Varma's Siva starring Akkineni Nagarjuna had made great impact on north India before Baahubali.
Baahubali: The Beginning has become the first non-English film to be screened at the Royal Albert Hall in London. SS Rajamouli, Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, composer MM Keeravani and producer Shobu Yarlagadda were present at this historical moment. The Baahubali team got a standing ovation on the occasion.
The Royal Albert Hall chooses a selection of films every year to recreate with the live orchestra. This is the first time they have selected an Indian film. It is really a big achievement for the Telugu film industry. Baahubali stars Prabhas and Rana Daggubati shared their excitement over this honour in an interview with BBC's Haroon Rashid backstage.
Baahubali is the pride of India
When asked about the proud moment for the Telugu cinema, Rana Daggubati said, "Baahubali is not just pride of Telugu cinema, but also for the whole of India in terms of cinematic language it has. Now, you see more spectacle based films coming in. It is a kind of flood gate opened. Now, we are on that world stage and we can do the kind of films, which are as big as the rest of the world."
Did the Telugu Cinema not make any impact on north India before Baahubali?
Haroon Rashid that in 1990s, there were films like Hamse Hai Muqabala and Bombay from the Tamil cinema that were dubbed in Hindi and became big hits. Telugu cinema never made a massive impact on the northern part of the country until Baahubali. He asked Prabhas whether he was surprised over this breakthrough.
In reply, Prabhas said, "Actually, not so huge success, but 30-40 years ago there was a film called Siva, directed by Ram Gopal Varma. This movie also made a great impact on the country. Baahubali crossed the boundaries. But yeah! We wanted the film to be big, but we did not expect it to so big in north India. Everywhere, it reached in the same way. The movie became hit with audience from Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Japanese."
