Ek Love Ya actor Raanna on the 3 years it took for his next film: I felt audiences won’t want to see me in a commercial entertainer

It’s been three years since Raanna, actress-producer Rakshitha’s younger brother, was launched by his brother-in-law Prem in Ek Love Ya. The film did not do wonders at the box office, but it provided Raanna a showreel of all that he’s capable of as an actor. Getting to his next film, though, has been nothing short of painstaking. While he did announce a sophomore project in late 2022, it never took off, so his second as an actor will begin only now, as Raanna’s been chosen as the leading man of filmmaker Tharun Kishore Sudhir’s newest production venture, an as-yet-untitled film to be directed by Punit Rangaswamy, which will go on floors shortly.

In a conversation with OTTPlay, Raanna, who will begin shooting for the untitled action-packed love story by the end of January, tells us why it’s taken him so long to finalize another film and that he’s not been taking it lightly because of a safety net in terms of Rakshitha and Prem, among others.

Ek Love Ya review: A start-to-finish showcase for debutant Raanna, who shows promise, albeit in run-of-the-mill film 

Raanna: The offers that came to me were not intriguing enough

“It’s taken me three years because if I had taken up the scripts that came to me in the interim, you’d have asked me why I did those films,” Raanna says with a laugh, adding, “They were not very intriguing and unlike a decade or two ago when audiences were a little more forgiving, today, that’s not the case. Back then, you could do more movies, take more chances, even if you were not completely convinced and see how it goes. That’s how a lot of actors could do 4-5 movies a year. I am sure they were not fully on board with all 5, but they could do it. The wrong ones would be forgotten in no time and the good ones would be remembered. Today, if you take 2-3 wrong steps, you will never know when you were on the track and then are not on it anymore. That was always on my mind.”

Could it be that Raanna took it a little easy because he has a safety net – that he can fall back on his sister Rakshitha and her husband, director Prem to get him another film? Technically, out of sight would be out of mind, right? “Even if you take a few years off and people may have forgotten you, if you come back with content that grabs their attention, you will also be in their field of vision because of the story. That is what mattered to me. Having said that, even if I feel I am presenting good content, its fate is not in my hands. All that I can do is try and do things that I feel is good and then hope for the best,” Raanna explains.

Does Raanna have a safety net given his filmi background?

The actor then proceeds to answer the question directly. “There is a cushioning, alright, but in what way is it really going to help me is the better question. I can fall back on it only when there is a good script. In the last 3 years I have heard so many stories, but it is so hard to find something that convinces you completely. At least, that is what I faced. I really wanted to work with a team outside of our immediate circles, because of which I had found a script. But the project ran aground even before take-off because of producer problems. Then came Punith’s film, which I begin shooting for soon. There’s also a project with Gombegala Love director Santhosh, which is phenomenal, and is something I really want to do,” says Raanna.

He adds, “Also, on the topic of falling back on my family, when we were doing Ek Love Ya, all of us were aligned towards one common goal. But today, everyone’s busy with their own career paths. Prem, for instance, is working on KD right now, after which he will probably do the Darshan sir movie or something else. To an outsider, it may look like there is a safety net and that I am taking it very easy, but the reality is that I am trying to connect with writers, directors and producers and making things work – this is almost a daily ritual. It is actually quite the struggle getting a producer on board even when you have a good script.”

Ek Love Ya’s mixed response tells me what audiences liked and didn’t and my next film will be based on that: Raanna 

One thing that Raanna is very clear is that he does not want to do a routine commercial film. “The market has changed so much in recent years that audiences are happy seeing only big stars with a certain reach doing a few fights, songs and some drama. Someone like me, who has not got much to show by way of work cannot draw audiences to see me fight and dance; at least that’s what I felt. Also, there is no dearth of content from across the world available on their phones. A content-driven film that captures the audiences’ attention from the word go is the only option then, where they’d come because the story is good and then see me and notice that I have done a good/bad job, as the case maybe,” Raanna reasons.