Remember Daggubati Raja? The sweet, soft-spoken actor who essayed what could be termed as textbook definition of ‘vanilla’ characters? Give him the benefit of the doubt and one would agree that his story is anything but vanilla. Raja’s career was in an upward trajectory all through the ‘80s; he was working round the clock and was content with offers that came his way, even if he were to appear in five scenes.
It was only during the early ‘90s that Raja found himself stuck in a limbo. For one, his on-screen character — of a flexible, kind-hearted, submissive fellow — posed a threat to his off-screen persona. And his resistance to use the word ‘no’ was read differently by filmmakers. He knew from a mile that the eventuality was nearing. That he had to take the call he’s been meaning to for a long time. Raja decided to put an end to his acting career, following a brief holiday in 1996 that involved more self-introspection than entertainment.
A screengrab from ‘Vedham Pudhithu’
“For the first time in my life, I said ‘no’ to directors,” says Daggubati Raja with his charming smile, instantly taking me back to his Vedham Pudhithu days, “There was nothing creative left for me and I wasn’t satisfied with my work. I was just there in movies without a purpose.” He understood the business of cinema and knew that the hero was carrying the weight. “I was hesitant about Kadhal Kottai , where, again, I was there for five scenes. But then, Agathiyan wanted me and that role was spoken about. It changed the way I saw movies up till that point,” he says, about taking up a project towards the fag end of his career.
The actor-turned-businessman tells me that he had no other reason to quit an industry that embraced him in its arms and made him an established star. He wanted to prove a point by revolting against directors who took him for “granted” and treated him merely as a filler. I ask him if he thought of consulting Bharathiraja, who launched him in Kadalora Kavithaigal , before giving up on movies, and his response is, “See, he is like my well-wisher. Consulting him is like asking a film offer, which I wasn’t very comfortable with. Plus, he did his part. It was all left to me.”
One could only sympathise with Raja’s wavering mindstate when he came to that conclusion. He, in fact, considered the option of turning into a producer, just to show the audience his unscathed potential as an actor. “I somehow wanted to give myself that one movie; to show how I have been wasted. But the chance of me becoming a successful producer was like a self-sacrifice,” he laughs, adding, “I had my business which seemed lucrative at that point.” Raja is not someone who loses his cool — even when he was offered those “despicable” roles. Which is why he politely corrects me when I ask him whether he is a product of the industry’s failure. “I think that is too harsh,” he says with a shrug, “Maybe I wasn’t at the right place and at the right time. I wanted to play characters that are real, with multiple shades. Maybe directors never saw that in me.”
- Daggubati Raja made a comeback in Telugu earlier this year with N.T.R Kathanayakudu. He was having his moment when he had to face the camera for the first time in 20 years, “Obviously I was nervous. The filmmaking landscape has changed completely. I wasn’t satisfied with my first shot, but it was the director [Krish] who said, ‘Trust me, I can’t believe that you gave a two-decade break’.”
- He was secretive about his acting stint and hid that piece of information from his son for the longest time. “My son was born after I quit films. He had no idea about my background until someone wanted to take a picture with me,” he says, adding, “He has only seen Vaa Arugil Vaa. That is also because he has never shown interest in watching my movies.”
Back to the grind
Twenty years later, Raja is at his inner peace, indicative of his WhatsApp profile picture that reads, “There is no greater wealth in this world than peace of mind.” It is partly because he is more successful businessman (he runs a company called Cosmos Square) than an actor. The latter is breathing a new lease of life with Adithya Varma , remake of Telugu blockbuster Arjun Reddy , wherein he plays a minor role of Dhruv’s father.
Raja says he has been listening to scripts on and off, but never had the urge to say ‘yes’. That happened when he met Vikram, who was learning horse riding at Madras School of Equitation, for his upcoming Ponniyin Selvan , directed by Mani Ratnam. He had a two-hour-long chat with Vikram on what he went through when the whole issue of Varma (directed by Bala, the film was scrapped and started afresh) cropped up. A week later came a call from Vikram and an offer he could not refuse. From one father to another, Raja’s response was an instinctive yes, even though he knew the character, having watched the Telugu original. “The set-up was good. I have always wanted to work with Ravi K Chandran. We have a boy [Dhruv] who is fabulous. I think my age is also the reason why I accepted this role,” he says, “I thought: this is it.”
- Raja says that he was in a state of shock when he watched Arjun Reddy. He knew that the reviews were divided, which, in turn, prompted him to watch the film, “If reviews are divided, I’ll make sure that I watch that movie,” he says, “The reason why Arjun Reddy became successful, I believe, is that everyone travelled with Vijay Deverakonda’s character. In that sense, I am confident about Dhruv’s performance.
- A host of filmmakers in the likes of Mysskin, Vetri Maaran and Gautham Menon made their mark in the post-Mani Ratnam phase. Is there a director Raja wishes to work? “All of them, actually. But first, let me get to Mani Ratnam. We have had conversations about my business, but never about movies.”
- The actor says he has been in touch with Vijay, Ajith and Vishal, and is good friends with Suriya and Karthi. “I watch all their movies. I watched Bigil recently.”
Raja and Vikram go way back in time. At the audio launch of Adithya Varma , Vikram shared an interesting nugget of how people used to mistake him for Raja during his initial years. To a question if it was a thing back then, he says. “It was nice of him to say that. We used to bump into each other during dance classes. I was busy at that time when he was making inroads. He got a Sethu and that changed things for him.”
He takes a pregnant pause before adding, “Had I gotten my Sethu , it would have been a different game.”
A faded star
Daggubati Raja was not given a choice by his producer-uncle Ramanaidu who thought of launching him in Tamil since he grew up in the then Madras. “I was against it because I lived in Madras all my life. If the movie failed, how would I have faced people? Then he gave me a better option — to make my début in Telugu,” says Raja, about how his career “accidentally” took off. His initial plan was to reserve a seat in Roshan Taneja’s school of acting, but his cousin dragged him to join under Bharathiraja’s school, which would later become his training ground for acting. “No other director could have handled me since I knew nothing about cinema. Bharathiraja had the patience. From an actor’s perspective, he was a blessing in disguise,” he adds.
Not many people know the fact that Raja (whose original name is Venkatesh) was a name christened by Bharathiraja at the press conference of Kadalora Kavithaigal . About the backstory as to how Bharathiraja gave “half of his name”, Raja cooks up a self-deprecating joke. “Somehow that ‘Ra’ sentiment didn’t work for me,” he breaks into laughter, quoting the names of Bharathiraja's heroines whose names invariably begin with the ‘Ra’ syllable — Radha, Radhika, Rekha and Revathi.
Having impressed Bharathiraja in Kadalora Kavithaigal , he went on to bag a meatier role in Vedham Pudhithu , which was a major box-office success upon its release. “While Manivannan used to explain the scene, Bharathiraja never made that mistake. He knew I would get confused,” he says, “He is someone who edits his movies, along with music while making it.” Our conversation shifts to Bharathiraja’s songs and how he picturised ‘Kannukkul Nooru Nilava’. “I remember shooting in Melukote. The thing with Bharathiraja is, he doesn’t say that he is shooting a song sequence. He takes numerous candid shots and uses them in songs.”
The song did more to the actor, who earned quite a bit of female following — a cautionary reminder that there was Daggubati Raja much before Aravind Swami, who took over the duties of giving women sleepless nights. About how handled female attention, Raja says, “I remember visiting Ethiraj College once which was a mistake I never committed again. I was there to judge Ms Ethiraj and the girls went bonkers.”
Khushbu and Raja in 'Captain Magal'
Image trap
Raja, by his own admission, is an instinctive actor. He does not subscribe to the idea of rehearsals, and had a tough time with Kamal Haasan, who was insistent on doing rehearsals during Sathi Leelavathi . His only grudge is that, he wanted to put his arms around filmmakers and work, which, to a large extent, ticked with Manivannan in Ini Oru Sudhanthiram . “He gave complete freedom and was very casual in his approach — something which Sathyaraj caught on. I felt comfortable with him because he would walk up to me and say, ‘Thalaiva, this is the scene. If the dialogues are hard, make it colloquial; do whatever you want.”
Ini Oru Sudhathiram , in which he played a grey-shaded character, was just a silver-lining in a career filled with the curse of the ‘second fiddle’ roles — from Mappillai , Pudhu Vasantham to Sathi Leelavathi . “It became frustrating after a point and the characters I was offered were again ‘soft’,” says Raja who agrees that all of his career choices were out of impulsive decision. As much as he was stereotyped on-screen, he was equally stereotyped in terms of his looks — a bushy moustache with rounded glasses. He tried to break that image with Love Birds — another forgettable outing wherein he sported a clean-shaven look, “There was nothing interesting about that role and it had no shades whatsoever. I still gave it a shot because Prabhudeva is my friend.” In the years he was in exile, Raja has been playing his own devil’s advocate and has realised one thing: that he never exhibited himself much. “Even if I meet Mani Ratnam, who, by the way, is a friend, I can’t be like: ‘Sir, I have been dying to work with you’. I somehow wanted things to develop from their side, but that’s not how the industry operates,” he explains, “They expect you to express yourself at least on some level, which I couldn’t do.”
Been there, done that
Having mastered the art of playing different varieties of the same ‘white’ character, Raja has been yearning for a completely dark role, not “just for the sake of being negative, but has to have some depth”. That, perhaps, explains why he jumped in excitement when Balu Mahendra offered Sathi Leelavathi , which, he tells me, had a different plot line — a tug of war between two men (Ramesh Aravind and Raja) over a woman (Heera), with Raja being the villain. From look tests to costumes, everything was finalised when the third man (Kamal Haasan) felt that the premise was done-to-death, and wished to make a full-fledged comedy. “Look at my destiny,” he begins, “From a bad guy, I became the extreme good guy. Wherever I went, people would specifically talk to me about that character.”
- A film for which Raja won much critical acclaim was Pudhu Vasantham, where, again, he played a soft, obedient character, coincidentally named Raja. When Vikraman gave the narration, he was totally against the film’s content. “The question that Suresh asks towards the end, I asked him during narration. I said, ‘How can four men look at the woman [played by Sithara] without a bit of male gaze?’ Vikraman gave an interesting answer. He said, ‘If that question crosses the audience’s mind, then this movie is a flop’.” Raja gives full credits to Vikraman for treading a fine line between real and vulgar.
- Raja says he used to feel proud each time when a fan/well-wisher described him ‘ageless’, until Sathyaraj brought it up during a success party. Only then it dawned on him. “He [Sathyaraj] said, ‘If you are going to look like this in every movie, then nobody is going to write roles for you. You need to show some variation in your personality’.”
Raja revolted once again as the movie defeated his whole purpose, but it was Balu Mahendra who convinced him to stay put. He was fuming inside but never showed on his face, and refrained from watching Sathi Leelavathi for the first few days. “I was having a weak moment. That’s the thing; films I felt would be a disaster for me have become great hits,” he says. Looking back, the film was a learning curve for several reasons. “I get worn out after every rehearsal. But what I learned from Kamal sir is; however confident you think you are, you need to have the patience to reflect that in your performance.”
Daggubati Raja was “pushed” into acting and now, he is being considerate about playing characters that would “pull” something out of him. “I am seriously thinking about acting again, provided there is something to chew.” I wind-up the two-hour-long conversation asking a generic question: Is there something you wish to change about your career? “I wish I'd had a mentor, or at least a friend who said, ‘Dude, what are you doing with your life?’”
