Pallavi Subhash made her Tollywood debut at the age of 32 in Naruda Donaruda, opposite Sumanth. Meanwhile, young actress Anupama Parameshwaran was removed from Ram Charan’s film and replaced by an experienced actress, Samantha.
Earlier, an actress in her 30s would be replaced by younger actresses, but now clearly, age is no bar. Take the examples of top actresses like Anushka Shetty, Kajal Aggarwal, Trisha, Shriya Saran, Nayanthara and Shruti Haasan among others, who are still not only ruling Tollywood but are also getting high remunerations.
Kajal Aggarwal stars opposite Rana Daggubati in an upcoming film by Teja. Anushka Shetty stars in Baahubali 2 opposite Prabhas and has signed yet another film Bhagmati. Nayanthara recently completed a Telugu film opposite Venkatesh and is busy with Tamil films.
Shruti Haasan is starring opposite Pawan Kalyan in Katamarayudu and is in demand for other films too. Last year, her film Srimanthudu opposite Mahesh Babu was a big hit. Trisha is also busy with multiple Tamil projects and Shriya Saran recently delivered a hit with Gautamiputra Satakarni.
In Telugu cinema of the ’80s, most actresses made their debut in their teens and ruled for a decade, almost retiring when they reached 30. N.T. Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Sobhan Babu and Krishna danced with actresses who were less than half their age. So did actors like Venkatesh, Ravi Teja, Nagarjuna, Balakrishna and Chiranjeevi.
“The scenario has changed from the ’80s to now. I acted opposite NTR, ANR and Sobhan Babu, when the age gap was more than 30 years. We played glamourous, female-centric and other roles as during our time, we had only limited actresses. Also, only four to five actors were ruling Telugu cinema at that time,” says senior actress Jayasudha.
In the last 20 years, Telugu cinema also started welcoming actresses from Bollywood and other film industries. “Many of the filmmakers were looking for fresh faces and roped in young actresses in the ’90s, but now, the trend has changed. Filmmakers want an experienced actress to carry the film and that’s why actresses above 30 are still in demand,” feels director-producer Chandra Siddharth.
He adds that now, most of the films are getting their revenues in the first week itself, so the top actors also want known faces in their films to woo the audience.
Jayasudha adds, “Now, two generations of actors are busy doing films, so many filmmakers are trying to rope in young actresses like Anupama opposite Sharwanand, Nani, Nikhil and others. But I personally feel established actors are looking for experienced actresses so that they can perform with ease.”
“Though a lot of new faces keep entering Tollywood, we still need actresses who can deliver a good performance. That’s why filmmakers are still opting for experienced actresses,” says producer Tagore Madhu.
