NTR Jr. is riding the RRR wave, with an eye on Marvel Studios and an action-packed year ahead

At the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles last month, NTR Jr., one of the lead actors of blockbuster Telugu epic  RRR, both thrilled and shocked his fans and movie critics with his press interaction on the red carpet that quickly went viral.

Netizens carefully dissected the hows and whys of the South Indian actor’s American twang, but what was remarkable was the ease and confidence with which the nearly 40-year-old engaged with Hollywood on his very first professional outing there. It spoke volumes about an artist who has groomed himself for the world stage.

NTR Jr. on the Golden Globes red carpet in Los Angeles, January 2023.

“You wanted to do a Marvel movie, we put it out there, manifesting it for you,” said his interviewer. “My fans are berserk about it, just waiting for Marvel to call,” replied NTR Jr. or Tarak as his friends and peers know him. He then promptly pulled out a birthday gift, a bow-tie, for his interviewer. This ebullience is not new to journalists in Hyderabad who have often been at the receiving end of his warmth; NTR Jr. often addresses each of them by name and asks after their well-being at every subsequent meeting.

His fluency with languages and dialects is also well known. During the pan-India promotion of the ₹550-crore  RRR, the actor spoke to fans in Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and English, besides Telugu. His co-star Ram Charan and he have dubbed for the film in these languages.

Since its release in March 2022, S.S. Rajamouli’s  RRR has managed to capture the attention of a nationwide audience in India, run to packed houses in the U.S., and won coveted awards on the global stage, including the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Globe for best song for the hit number ‘Naatu Naatu’. In Oscar contention in the Best Original Song category, its standout choreography saw moviegoers dancing along, feeding off both NTR Jr. and Charan’s energy.  

Man of the moment

The grandson of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and matinee idol N.T. Rama Rao (Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao), NTR Jr. is one of the most versatile actors in Telugu cinema. “He has always been an interesting performer. He can do broad, he can do subtle, and he is a born theatrical actor,” says film critic Baradwaj Rangan.

Senior actor Rajiv Kanakala, who had a cameo in  RRR, is among those who has witnessed NTR Jr.’s evolution as an actor from close quarters. “His mother initiated him into Kuchipudi as a child and I think that helped him get a good grasp of the  navarasas. Kuchipudi does more than teach a student about dance moves.”

He recalls filming an action sequence with him in the bylanes of Nellore for the 2003 revenge drama  Naaga. “We did not rehearse. Any effort spent rehearsing in the scorching heat would have drained us. We had to run in the narrow street and it would culminate with an autorickshaw being toppled. We surveyed the path we had to take and the camera positions. We were in sync and just went with the flow,” says Kanakala.

The film didn’t do well at the box office. Irrespective of the outcome, what NTR Jr.’s colleagues attest to is the unbridled energy and determination the actor packs into each moment spent on the set. “He showed great fortitude back then, and didn’t let success or failure touch him,” recalls Leepakshi Ellawadi, his stylist for about four films, including Brindavanam (2010). She says his discipline, with his diet, workout, and rehearsals, continues to be impressive. “And he has a great sense of humour. As long as the joke is not on him!” 

NTR Jr. and Nivetha Thomas in K.S. Ravindra’s action film ‘Jai Lava Kusa’.

Actor Nivetha Thomas, who worked with NTR Jr. in K.S. Ravindra’s action film  Jai Lava Kusa (2017) where he plays a triple role, remembers the preparatory work put in by the actor. “Tarak came well-prepared with his lines, paid close attention to the director’s instructions and had a clear plan for all three roles. The variations he brought to each of them were important because there were several frames with two or sometimes all three of his characters in them at the same time,” she says.

Having known him for 15 years and worked with him closely for nearly four years on  RRR, Charan attests to NTR Jr.’s never-say-die spirit. “With Tarak, what you see is what you get, there’s nothing hidden. He’s all in or all out. It’s impossible to make him do something he does not wish to do,” Charan says in a podcast interview to  Variety.

It’s not like he is unmindful of his stardom and legacy. Ahead of the release of  Janatha Garage in 2016, we were in his office in Banjara Hills, where he answered my questions with poise and humility. “I’m happy without the baggage that comes with being a star,” he said then. “There is nothing that we, as actors, can do about being caught in the numbers game. It’s sad, but there’s no escaping it. At the end of the day, despite box office results, I want to be happy doing a film. I started searching for happiness and maybe that shows in the films I do today,” he said.

NTR Jr.’s subsequent ventures, from the action-oriented  Jai Lava Kusa and  Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava (2018) to  RRR now, have cemented his position as a fine actor and bankable star. According to Kanakala, the NTR Jr. we see today is as much a result of a shift in the actor’s mindset as it is the role of directors such as Sukumar, Puri Jagannadh, V.V. Vinayak, Trivikram Srinivas and Rajamouli.

Winning with Rajamouli

NTR Jr.’s collaboration with Rajamouli began with the coming-of-age drama  Student No.1, at a time when both were relatively new in the industry. The film was a hit and among the most successful Telugu films of 2001.

The two went on to replicate their success in action entertainer  Simhadri (2003) and  Yamadonga (2007), which was a hat tip to NTR Jr.’s grandfather’s fantasy comedy film  Yamagola (1977).  RRR is their fourth film together, and at promotional tours for the film, the director was all praise for his lead pair. “If you turn the camera to only his eyebrow, he can perform with that eyebrow. He’s that good,” the filmmaker said of NTR Jr.

(L to R) Actor Ram Charan, director S.S. Rajamouli and actor NTR Jr. on the sets of ‘RRR’.
| Photo Credit:
PTI

The international spotlight on NTR Jr. and Ram Charan now is a byproduct of the success of  RRR and Rajamouli, agrees Naman Ramachandran, London-based author and international correspondent at Variety.  Baahubali was the first Telugu film to release in a theatre in his predominantly white neighbourhood as opposed to mainstream theatres in central London. “Rajamouli’s films, like Tamil director Shankar’s, have grown to appeal to a larger audience,” he says.

According to him,  Temper did to NTR Jr.’s stardom what  Baashha (1995) did to Rajinikanth’s. “For Rajini, his international fan-following was limited to Japan. But here you see a big fan-following in a completely non-Asian country. Where does it go from here? Depends on the next film, how it is made and how it is marketed,” he says, adding that he has high hopes for the actor’s upcoming Prashanth Neel film because of the “scale and ‘scene elevation’ in  KGF films”.

Meenakshi Shedde, India and South Asia delegate to the Berlin Film Festival, and Golden Globes International Voter, says, “ RRR showcases the many skills of NTR Jr. who is capable of a range of action feats — even if they are enhanced by VFX — and emotions.”

“He is also a terrific dancer, as we see in the Golden Globe-winning ‘Naatu Naatu’. The screenplay’s many twists allow him multiple reinventions — as a Gond leader, a Muslim, a shy lover, a nationalist leader — and he does them all well,” says Shedde.

Crossover appeal and Hollywood

During their several interviews with journalists in Los Angeles, both NTR Jr. and Charan have expressed their willingness to work in Hollywood. Then there was the Marvel Studios shoutout.

Filmmaker Gautham Menon feels the time is ripe. “It is about time international doors opened for NTR Jr. and several other capable Indian actors. This is not to take away from the good work they are doing in Indian cinema. But it would be interesting to see one of them as a strong antagonist in a Bond or Bourne film.”

Rangan points to how the U.S. mainstream audiences have accepted him. “It’s not just the diaspora. Both the artsy indie crowd and people like James Cameron have seen the movie. It may do for NTR Jr. what  Crouching Tiger did for Michelle Yeoh. She is now a mainstream U.S. star, acting across boundaries,” he says.

“As movies become more global, filmmakers want more faces that resemble people around the globe. In  The Gray Man (2022, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo), Dhanush is not an exotic character with Indian tantric tricks. He plays an actual assassin. It’s a role that could be done by a white man or by a woman. That’s where we are right now and if NTR Jr. plays his cards well, he can really cash in on this success. He will have to get an agent there and so on, but if there is somebody who can do this, I think it is him,” says Rangan.

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