Akkineni Nagarjuna - Acting Career

Acting Career

Nagarjuna acted as a child artist in the 1968 Telugu film Sudigundalu directed by veteran Adurthi Subbarao. Years later he made his debut as a lead actor through the 1986 Telugu film Vikram directed by V. Madhusudhana Rao. In 1988, he starred in Aakhari Poratam directed by K. Raghavendra Rao where he was paired opposite Sridevi and Suhasini.

In 1989, he was starred in the Maniratnam directed Romantic-drama, Geethanjali which became a major box-office success and was critically acclaimed. The film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment in 1990.

In the same year, Nagarjuna acted in Siva, an action blockbuster directed by Ram Gopal Varma. In 1990, he subsequently made his Bollywood debut with the Hindi remake of the same film titled Shiva.

He followed it up with action films like Killer, Chaithanya and Nirnayam working with directors such as Fazil and Priyadarshan. Other films which were released in the subsequent years include President Gari Pellam, Varasudu, Gharana Bullodu and Allari Alludu. In 1994 he starred in a Hindi-Telugu bilingual Criminal directed by Mahesh Bhatt. The same year he ventured into comedy for the first time with Hello Brother. It was later remade into Hindi as Judwaa and dubbed into Tamil.

In 1996, Nagarjuna starred and produced Ninne Pelladatha, which was directed by Krishna Vamsi. The movie fetched a National Award for him by winning the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu & Filmfare Award for Best Film - Telugu that's his 1st Filmfare Award as a producer. The next year, Nagarjuna acted in Annamayya where he portrayed the role of Annamacharya, a 15th-century Telugu singer and poet, won him his Filmfare Best Actor Award and his first Nandi Award for Best Actor. His subsequent releases were Nuvvu Vastavani, Ninne Premistha and Azad. He starred in the romantic comedies such as Santhosham, Manmadhudu, and Shivamani as well. He produced Satyam in 2003, that starred his nephew Sumanth.

In 2004, Nagarjuna had two releases—Nenunnanu and Mass. The latter was produced by Nagarjuna and directed by choreographer Lawrence Raghavendra. In 2005, Nagarjuna acted in and produced Super. In 2006, he starred in Sri Ramadasu, his second period film based on the 18th-century Telugu composer of the same name. Nagarjuna received the Nandi Award for Best actor for the film. In December 2007, he appeared in Don and a year later, he appeared in King alongside Trisha Krishnan and Srihari.

In the year 2010, he had releases such as Kedi and Ragada. His latest film Gaganam was released on 11 February 2011. Its Tamil version was titled Payanam. In 2011 Nagarjuna signed three movies in a row. They are Rajanna, Damarukam and Shirdi Sai. He recently signed Love Story which starts its shooting in June 2012.