Exclusive! Actor Rahul Dev decodes South vs Bollywood cinema: Bashing Bollywood is not the way, walk with the change

One topic has been gaining popularity since some time. That is the conversation around South vs Hindi films. While mainstream Bollywood actors recognised the business potential in South Indian films much more in today’s times, some actors have been associated with both Bollywood and South cinema since long. Rahul Dev is one such actor who constantly worked in Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films for ages. 

Now that everyone started paying attention to the topic of why Bollywood films are failing at the box office whereas south films like KGF, RRR and Kantara are doing business in Pan India; in a special conversation with OTTplay, Rahul tried to explain why people are flocking to the theatres to watch a south star but not a Bollywood star as much. 

The actor said, "Look, I have worked with some of the celebrated filmmakers and actors over there in the south Indian film industry and also have observed how there is a strong fan base of cinema and their stars. They are loyal fans. Cinema is still larger than life there and that has a wide audience. In Hindi, our whole culture of watching cinema in the theatre has changed and also, we need to understand that even we had that phase where people would go to the theatre and dance and whistle when their favorite hero would make an entry - from Mr Bachchan to Salman bhai to Shah Rukh to the actors of the next generation. Even we also had the remake of a south Indian film that worked wonderfully at the box office. So, it is not that we did not make good films." 

However, he still holds on to the point of theatrical release and the difference between north and south culture. 

"While in the south, the interest of larger-than-life cinema is still highly celebrated by going to the theatre to experience a film. That has changed among the Bollywood audience. Here, we have shifted to realistic slice-of-life films that though critics. Audiences won't go to the theatre investing money and time to watch but rather watch on OTT platforms. So, bashing Bollywood is not a way to look at it. Find a way to walk with the change," explained the veteran actor. 

Rahul has worked with Ram Charan in Naayak and five films with Junior NTR. He also worked with the iconic Baahubali and RRR maker SS Rajamouli in the film Simhadri which was a huge hit. 

The actor was last seen in the Tusshar Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah starrer film Maarrich.