Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Anupama Chopra sits down with Rana Daggubati for InFocus, at a moment when the actor-producer has at least three world domination plans running at once. Rana traces his current focus back to a conviction that a genuinely new generation of filmmakers and audiences has arrived, and to a frustration that rising costs have pushed the industry back into caution — a problem he says Kerala has solved and the rest of the country has not. Spirit Media's answer is a slate of five to seven films by first-time directors inside the next eighteen to twenty months, two already on floor, alongside a plan to build small fifty and eighty-seater cinemas that feel like coffee shops rather than multiplexes, starting with the Assembly Rooms in Ooty and a second in Hyderabad. Production, as he puts it, is not a fancy vacation and the vanity around it — it is a camera and whatever sits in front of it.
The conversation moves from craft to the things that shaped it. Rana talks about acting as a lifestyle rather than a job, about why he thinks the balance everyone is chasing already exists in a life where people come to your office in the morning to tell you a story, and about the reset that followed Baahubali, when his health collapsed and he spent months in America writing an exhaustive list of everything else he could conceivably do. He argues that the arts are born out of trauma and that AI can mimic but not create it, while being clear-eyed about AI as an efficiency tool and about the specialised products already being built for screenwriters. He also breaks down why Telugu audiences shifted from hero-first to director-first, why theatrical money still carries a fire that streaming money removed, why his Hindi production debut has taught him how differently release dates get decided up north, and what he sees when he looks a few years ahead — films without intervals, day passes at cinemas, and a surge in live performance.
0:00 Intro
6:38 Why acting is a lifestyle, not a job
13:03 Trauma, AI and what machines can't make
19:41 Rebuilding after Baahubali and the health crisis
26:29 When too much money becomes a problem
32:48 Drawing his own lines around AI
38:59 Producing his first Hindi film
#RanaDaggubati #InFocus #THRIndia
Anupama Chopra sits down with Rana Daggubati for InFocus, at a moment when the actor-producer has at least three world domination plans running at once. Rana traces his current focus back to a conviction that a genuinely new generation of filmmakers and audiences has arrived, and to a frustration that rising costs have pushed the industry back into caution — a problem he says Kerala has solved and the rest of the country has not. Spirit Media's answer is a slate of five to seven films by first-time directors inside the next eighteen to twenty months, two already on floor, alongside a plan to build small fifty and eighty-seater cinemas that feel like coffee shops rather than multiplexes, starting with the Assembly Rooms in Ooty and a second in Hyderabad. Production, as he puts it, is not a fancy vacation and the vanity around it — it is a camera and whatever sits in front of it.
The conversation moves from craft to the things that shaped it. Rana talks about acting as a lifestyle rather than a job, about why he thinks the balance everyone is chasing already exists in a life where people come to your office in the morning to tell you a story, and about the reset that followed Baahubali, when his health collapsed and he spent months in America writing an exhaustive list of everything else he could conceivably do. He argues that the arts are born out of trauma and that AI can mimic but not create it, while being clear-eyed about AI as an efficiency tool and about the specialised products already being built for screenwriters. He also breaks down why Telugu audiences shifted from hero-first to director-first, why theatrical money still carries a fire that streaming money removed, why his Hindi production debut has taught him how differently release dates get decided up north, and what he sees when he looks a few years ahead — films without intervals, day passes at cinemas, and a surge in live performance.
0:00 Intro
6:38 Why acting is a lifestyle, not a job
13:03 Trauma, AI and what machines can't make
19:41 Rebuilding after Baahubali and the health crisis
26:29 When too much money becomes a problem
32:48 Drawing his own lines around AI
38:59 Producing his first Hindi film
#RanaDaggubati #InFocus #THRIndia
