Rana Reveals Who The First Choice For ‘Bhallaladeva’ Was!

Master storyteller Rajamouli is considered one of the pioneers in Indian cinema now. His tremendous rise happened between our eyes. He progressed from a serial director to the biggest director in the country who is catering to the international audience now. The recently released Netflix documentary ‘Modern Masters’ showcased his journey and gave us a lot of insights regarding his films as well as his personal life.

Talking about ‘Baahubali’ and how it all happened, Rana Daggubati who played the iconic villain Bhallaladeva revealed how he got onboard. He mentioned that he was not the first choice for the role and explained how his conversation with producer Shobu Yarlagadda went.

He said, “The producer, Shobu Yarlagadda, came and just told me that it’s a period war-based kind of film and that they were looking at me playing the antagonist. I replied that I’d love to have a narration. I also asked him, ‘Who’s the actor you went to before you came to me?’”

The producer replied that they tried to reach out to Jason Mamoa before Rana. As we know, Jason is known for his movies like ‘Aquaman’ and ‘Fast X’. Rana said that he was elated to find out that he was the second option after the Hollywood actor. He said, “When Shobu told me about this, I thought, “Ah, great! It’s Khal Drogo and me, in that order.

I said, ‘Okay, that’s a good second number!’” The team had Jason Mamoa in mind as he played Khal Drogo in ‘Game Of Thrones’. Prabhas too revealed how Rajamouli is a madman and how they shot in areas like Mahabaleshwar where only a few were kept in a good hotel while Rajamouli and others stayed at a low-cost hotel to save money during ‘Baahubali – The Beginning’.