When the Superstar Called Him Bastard!

Today, we are talking about ‘Legend’, ‘Rangasthalam’ and ‘Aravinda Sametha’ as Jagapathi Babu’s best performances and he indeed did justice to those negative characters and reinvented himself playing character roles. Long back when he was playing hero roles, he tried to experiment with playing different roles like the one in ‘Anthapuram’.

[m9ad]

In ‘Anthapuram’ Jagapathi played a ruffian who is out-and-out rustic, innocent and brave heart. When Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan chose to play the same role in the Hindi remake ‘Shakti’, he felt it hard to weave the same magic in the climax scene. After several takes, he said, “I’m not able to do what that bastard did.” Jagapathi Babu rates this as his best compliment coming from a superstar like Shahrukh Khan.

‘Anthapuram’ stands out as his personal favourite and he drank to enact a couple of scenes. The actor wanted to bring in the fire needed for the role and hence, chose to drink. Jagapathi neither said that it was right to drink for a scene nor it was wrong. But, he did it as he wanted to do so. Back then, the role received a lot of critical acclaim for the way he breathed life into the character he played.