Nene Raju Nene Manthri’s Jogendra is a self-assured king: Rana Daggubati

Rana Daggubati’s first release after Baahubali 2, Nene Raju Nene Manthri, has created quite a buzz and is eagerly awaited. The teaser, the trailer and the songs have all been received well by the audience. The actor is on a promotion spree and was in Bangalore where he spoke at length about the difference between Jogendra, the character he plays in Nene Raju Nene Manthri, and Baahubali’s Bhallaladeva.

Asked about Jogendra, Rana said this character’s graph is very vast and expansive. He is a man whose life is marked by ‘love, lust and power’.

Nene Raju Nene Manthri is a love story set in the backdrop of politics, he explained.

To those who are not very familiar with Rana’s work, the Baahubali actor played a politician early in his career in a film called Leader. However, his most memorable role remains Bhallaladeva of Baahubali series.

Jogendra from Nene Raju Nene Manthri is not an honest guy like the one in Leader who works for the betterment of society. Rather, Jogendra’s journey into politics begins after he has been wronged by some people. He plays the power game for his personal reasons. In fact, Jogendra is quite a contradiction -- he breaks law with impunity and takes on his opponents in power with gumption. However, he loves, cares and respects his people.

Bhallaladeva was plain badass -- he had a clear vision of what he wanted and went about getting it. But in comparison, Jogendra has a lot of greys to his character.

Speaking to Indian Express, here’s how Rana explained the difference: “Well, Nene Raju Nene Manthri is completely a different tale. This is a tale of a man, who has a very big graph in life and very big graph in society. His growth is all over the place. In Baahubali, Bhallaladeva had a clear-cut view that he wanted to be the king of that place and that’s it. But, this is a completely different tale.”

“Jogendra is a self-assured king. And I can’t deny the fact that there is some coolness in playing a bad guy,” he added.

And yet Jogendra didn’t start out as this guy running after power. “Jogendra is not someone from the political world. He is just one of us. He is pissed off at something that someone did to him and he goes back fighting. He is in the world that he doesn’t know. He is waging a war that he doesn’t know whether he will win or lose. It is almost like an eye-opener for a lot of us in terms of how a layman would understand these things,” Rana was quoted as saying.

Nene Raju Nene Manthri (Telugu) has been directed by Teja and will hit the screens on August 11. The film is a trilingual -- it is called Naan Aanaiyittaal in Tamil and Raaja Kireedam in Malayalam.