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Krishna Ajai Rao: I want to turn director, but that hinges on the business of my next, Yudhakaanda

Ajai gets candid about how the spate of failures has driven him in the pursuit of good cinema

Krishna Ajai Rao: I want to turn director, but that hinges on the business of my next, Yudhakaanda

Krishna Ajai Rao plays a lawyer in his next, Yuddhakaanda

Last Updated: 04.57 PM, Jun 09, 2023

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Kannada actor Krishna Ajai Rao has been in the industry for two decades, a time in which he has been a part of a few blockbusters, but still didn’t get the due he deserves. At 43 years of age, he knows he is in a precarious position - his core audience has become the older, TV-preferring generation and the new set of youngsters have other idols. He has a mission at hand, he reckons. Speaking to the media recently, Ajai opened up about his career, where he stands now and his vision for the future, among others.

“I am on a deadline now. Every day, new talents are being introduced in Kannada cinema, the mode of filmmaking is changing, etc. The audience that I had when I set out as a hero years ago, now has college-going children. These youngsters will not come to watch my films because they would want to see heroes of their generation and their parents, who have seen me earlier, do not go to theatres now and would prefer watching a film on TV. I am now in a risky position, wherein I have to try and draw both sets of audiences to theatres,” he said.

The actor, who is producing his next film, Yuddhakaanda, has, in the past, directed portions of some of his films and provided creative inputs. Direction, he says, is something he wants to turn to soon enough and has even been working on a script that is nearly done. But the nitty-gritties of the project will fall in place based on the business prospects of Yudhakaanda, he said candidly. “The question of whether I will produce it or not will depend entirely on how Yudhakaanda is received by audiences and the returns on my investment,” he added.

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To a question about whether he has, of late, become choosy about the projects to take up, Ajai said that it is a natural by-product of the continuous spate of failures he has had in his careers. While he doesn't blame anyone, Ajai does feel, though, that he did not get his due as an artiste. "Even when my films have failed, never once was it said that it is because I didn’t perform well and I know that the filmmakers I have collaborated with did not intend to pull my career graph down. I can’t accept every film that comes my way because I know that I am not an actor whose fans will give any movie a fantastic opening. I do not have such illusions about myself. I know I am only an actor; not a star. In fact, I have given up on wanting to be a star; now the only focus is to give audiences good cinema,” he said.

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