Veteran actor Nagarjuna is always looking for an experience that satisfies his soul and it is this reason why he took up ‘Brahmastra Part One: Shiva’. The actor returns to Hindi cinema after close to two decades with a cameo appearance in Ayan Mukerji-directed fantasy adventure epic, led by Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt.
Speaking in an interview, Nagarjuna said, “I was getting incredible roles. (But) I am kind of a home bird. I like to live in Hyderabad. I always did very special roles in Bollywood. Whatever I have done right from the beginning, it was important for me to entertain people. All the roles that I did come looking for me, I never (went for them).”
“Here working in Bollywood, I look at it for experience and soul satisfaction as they call it and doing roles which are not on my shoulders. It has always been like that,” the 63-year-old star, who acted in Bollywood movies like “Shiva”, “Khuda Gawah”, “Criminal” and “Zakhm”, he added. “A film like ‘Brahamastra’ is the right opportunity. The bridges have opened up and so everyone is going everywhere. And India has become one industry and that is how it should be because Indian people love films and cricket. I am so happy that this film helped the industry grow and actors are getting to do different roles in different languages,” Nagarjuna also said.
In ‘Brahmastra’, Nagarjuna featured as an artist named Anish Shetty, who holds the power of the ‘Nandi Astra’. Nagarjuna recalled that Mukerji offered him Brahmastra in 2018 but he had a condition before saying yes to it. “When I was told Ayan wants me to play a role in his film, I said sure but what am I going to be doing in a film like that? And I won’t do it if it doesn’t work for me. It is not about the length, it has to work for me in my heart.”
What got Nagarjuna most interested in the movie was that it took him back to his days of watching mythological shows on television. He reminisced that he grew up watching “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” and a lot of folklore films. “I had seen in ‘Maharabharata’ where they had used these astras in the war and that interested me. I also read a lot of Chitra Katha comics when I was young.”
