Tiger Nageswara Rao: Anupam Kher to play an Intelligence Bureau officer alongside Ravi Teja

Ravi Teja’s maiden Pan-India film Tiger Nageswara Rao will see National Award-winning actor, Anupam Kher in a crucial role. In an exclusive chat with Pinkvilla, director Vamsee spilled the beans about Anupam Kher’s role. He further also added saying that Anupam’s presence will improve the stature of the film’s cast and will also help in the Hindi market.

“It is a very crucial character and it is throughout the movie. He is the one who plays the key role in the life of Tiger. He is playing an IB (Intelligence Bureau) Officer from Delhi,” reveals director Vamsee. Tiger Nageswara Rao is a biopic on the notorious thief and is set in 70s in a village named Stuartpuram.

Vamsee, who has helmed projects like Kittu Unnadu Jagratha, Dongata and Mrs Subbalakshmi, says he is not looking at Tiger Nageswara Rao as a Pan-India project and is only focused on the content. “Movies like KGF and Pushpa were not announced as Pan-Indian films initially. Here, with Tiger Nageswara Rao, we announced it as a Pan-India film but I’m not thinking about it. I believe only in the process and so there’s no pressure. I’m only trying to concentrate on my basics and do the shoot. Because when I wrote the script and pitched it to the producers, they decided we should go Pan-India. We are not changing the script or anything because it is a Pan-India film now,” said the director.

Vamsee sticks to his old statement, ‘Films never flop, it is the budget that flops the film.’

“Over budget is always the failure in the project. When you know that this film has this market and if you are over budgeting still, you are putting pressure on the public and not on others. Adding on, after the pandemic, the audience is smart. They want the content, and the new backdrop, storytelling in the film has to excite them. They don’t want to see regular masala because for that they have TV and laptops. If they are coming to the theatres, they want to see something new, never seen or heard before,” he shares his thoughts on the statement he made in 2019.

The director calls Tiger Nageswara Rao his ‘dream project’ and wants it to make a mark like Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan. “It is my dream project. As Rajamouli sir said there are a lot of hidden stories in India and I always believe in telling stories about people who existed around us. Like Nayakan my favourite film became a trademark film of Mani Sir and always look forward to his work. I always wanted to work on a film that becomes a trade mark in my career,” he signs off.