Southern flavour in Bollywood
Bollywood films have for a long time been remade in Tollywood and vice versa. Now, Telugu actresses are increasingly landing interesting projects in Hindi. After Nithya Menen picked up Breathe into the Shadow last year, which starred Abhishek Bachchan, several South actresses followed suit.Rashmika Mandanna signed two back-to-back Bollywood films, Mission Majnu and Goodbye, while Pranitha Subhash will be seen in Bhuj: The Pride of India and Hungama 2. It might be right to say that the upward trend started with Baahubali. The film’s super success also paved way for filmmakers in the industry to cast more actors from other regions. Simultaneously, the emergence of OTTs and web series has made available a lot of content, which has even made actresses visible to not only audiences but also filmmakers.Another southern actress to have signed back to back Hindi films is Rashmika Mandanna. While the actress reveals that she loves experimenting with roles, she is equally ambitious and curious to test waters in Hindi. Moreover, now that multilingual films seem to be the order of the day, even filmmakers have been finding opportunities to look comfortably beyond Mumbai while casting actresses.With emerging market and related opportunities, it is equally important that actresses make the right choice with the kind of films. While Pranitha Subhash has been showered with several offers in Hindi earlier, she signed two back-to-back Bollywood films last year because of the diversity in the film offers.Ajay Devgn’s Bhuj: The Pride of India is an action-war drama, Hungama 2 is a comic caper.While leading Tollywood actresses have been bagging happening projects in B-Town, Bollywood actresses who have no great projects currently, have been moving to South films. The latest news we hear is that of Sonakshi Sinha acting in a Telugu film.Earlier too several actresses from South have excelled across various time periods. But I think post Baahubali, Bollywood filmmakers have been increasingly looking southward. Earlier, it was difficult for directors to know about actresses from a specific region, but the emerging digital platforms and OTTs have added a lot of knowledge to the filmmakers, says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.