Komal Nahta and Rakul Preet Singh dissect Bollywood vs South Cinema

The year 2022 has seen a huge surge of South Cinema pan-India. Even as most Bollywood movies faltered at the box office, movies like ‘Pushpa – The Rising’, ‘RRR’, ‘Baahubali’, ‘KGF Chapters 1 and 2’, ‘Kantara’, among many others, gained traction across the country. The South phenomenon is not a new one, several Hindi movies are remakes of hit South movies, the latest one being Ajay Devgn-starrer ‘Drishyam 2’.

One of the hottest conversations this year, ‘Bollywood vs South Film Industry, An Actor’s Perspective’, was the topic of a fireside chat at the SCREENXX Summit and Awards 2022 between Komal Nahta, Film Trade Analyst, and actor Rakul Preet Singh.

Komal Nahta initiated the chat by appreciating the work done by Rakul Preet Singh in both Bollywood and South Cinema.

Sharing her journey in the world of Cinema, Rakul Preet recalled, “I’d always wanted to be an actor. During my college days when I was doing modeling, a director called my father and asked him if I could work in a South movie. He assured my father that the shooting would be for only 60 days. While I wanted to become an actor, it was too early for me. So, I refused the acting opportunity at that time due to my exams.”

“At that time, I didn’t know how big the South movie industry was. I decided to start my acting career after finishing college. After college, I did the pageant, won a few titles, then decided to go for acting and signed ‘Yaariyan’. Further to ‘Yaariyan’, I got another film from the South. I said yes to it. This film released before ‘Yaariyan’. That movie is the best choice I took because that gave me a lot of recognition, and I started receiving projects after that,” she shared.

Nahta observed, “when someone does a Telugu film after Bollywood or any South movie after Bollywood, it is difficult for them to understand the language and work in that language. There has been a debate of people saying that South films are working better than Bollywood films. Prior to now, only good South films were dubbed into Hindi and released later, but now we can watch Hindi dubbed films as soon as they are released. Today, most of the Bollywood movies are flopping, while South movies are doing very well, and all the movies we watch are hitting the box office.”

These are edited excerpts. For the complete conversation, watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKVZQz8K7Gw