PremiumExclusive! Priya Anand: I’ve worked with Puneeth and Shivarajkumar and my favourite is…
Priya Anand was paired with the late Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar in Rajakumaraa and his last film James. She has now done her first film with his brother, Shivarajkumar, called Karataka Damanaka
Last Updated: 10.32 PM, Feb 28, 2024
Priya Anand has had the distinction of working with both Shivarajkumar and the late Puneeth Rajkumar, even through the collaboration with the Century Star has just happened. It’s a privilege that not many get and she is very aware of that and considers herself lucky and blessed at the opportunity. Priya, who has done two films with Puneeth – Rajakumaraa and James - has been paired with Shivarajkumar in Karataka Damanaka, which releases on March 8, but she says that she was meant to have worked with him much earlier.
“I’d been signed up to work with Shivanna for a Satya Jyothi Films production, but then that project got delayed, so when the offer for Karataka Damanaka came along, I jumped at it. I had met Shivanna for the first time during the audio launch of Rajakumaraa. Some of my staff members, who’d worked with Genelia earlier when she did Satya in Love with Shivanna, were like, ‘If you think Appu is down-to-earth, wait till you meet his brother’. Shivanna is such an easy-going man and has told me that he’s seen my work with specific mentions of certain films. I was so amazed; he’s just the nicest, sweetest man,” says Priya about her co-star.
Who’d be her favourite, though, among the brothers? “Obviously Appu, but that’s also because I had a friendship with him. He wasn’t just my co-star; he was someone that I got to spend a lot of time with because I did two films with him. Both the films took over a year each in the making, so I had a more personal relationship with him and got to know him more. He was never Puneeth, he was Appu for me. It will always be him, if you ask me who my favourite is. In Karataka Damanaka, there are two heroes, so the chemistry is more between Shivanna and Prabhu(deva) sir and then Nishvika and me,” says Priya.
The actress adds that her go-to every time she needs to feel better is to watch a Puneeth Rajkumar video and see him smile. “I look for Appu in every man I meet; not only my co-stars. Unfortunately, they don’t make men like him anymore,” she winds up.