Rana Dagoberto, a superstar of the Telugu film industry, but also a nationally recognized superstar, and he's one of the rare people who's using his fame to build countless businesses. His origins are from one of the most respected media business families, and this is what he's doing as a second generation entrepreneur. On this episode of The Runway Show, Runner opened up about everything from films to storytelling to mythology to business, of course. And if someone is that interested in such varied topics, you can only imagine the depth and the width of this guy's mind on a personal level.

I enjoyed every bit of this conversation. Rana's career is kind of a reflection of what I'm trying to do in life, trying to use fame and the platform that media is created to build Ferdo businesses.

Lots of learnings for me on this episode, and I hope that there's going to be lots of learnings for you. Remember I told Channel the runway show clips is now live on YouTube. So if you just wanted the highlights of this podcast, you'll be able to find it on biotics clips. But for now, this is Ranaudo globally on the runway show.

Mr. Dogsbody, welcome to the Ranvir show. Thank you, General. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Very little is known about you, even lesser known about your partnership with America Toccata, for example. That's something a common friend of ours, Dhruv Sugarbaker, told me.

He's kind of briefed me on your whole entrepreneurial side of things. And what I find really cool is I don't see too many famous people really utilizing their fame to maximize their business careers. And I do feel like one of the purposes of famous business. And I also feel that because you had a business oriented family, you've somewhat got the education in business from them. You've got the education of cinema from them. But you're that second gen, the next gen who's trying to really blow things out of the water.

From the things I've spoken to Drew about, I know that you're planning for like 10 years into the future, 15 years into the future. So I find that really cool. Secondly, could you could you brief me on this mentality? Like, why did you did you become famous in order to pursue this business career?

What's what your whole mission in life?

What's my mission in life? My mission in life was to tell big stories, big in the sense of spectacle, because I grew up watching films like Star Wars and others and I started learning visual effects. So that became my first job, really. I was a visual effects supervisor very long term. I had a small VFX company in iterable, so that was pretty much my first career into the movies. And after that I continued producing a few films Autistics lately, so won a national award for it, but didn't get a theatrical release, things like that.

And the opportunity that was there or what I realized that the governing sense of storytelling was either a director or an actor in today's scenario. And there's is ways, because I knew the idea of how to put a film together because I was a producer by the EU. So I went off to training in theater and training in specifically to be an actor in the movies. So once you like the movies are not you, it's not you don't really have a different job in it.

You you do whatever you want to do that kind of engages you at that point. And and there was a type of cinema that I liked and I wanted to produce at that point where there was a lot of talent that wasn't very interested in it. And so so then that to me was a clear indication that there was a kind of cinema that was available to do and you needed actors and talent will do that for sure. So and so we I said, look, if I can find that opportunity to find that space, I knew that there were stories that would resonate in different in the same story can resonate in a country with similar actors.

It's happened in the past. So whether it's from starting in Telugu films, going to India, working in the martyrdom films like that, working in both spaces, but sometimes I worked in Tamil for a bit. And then you got to do because you've got to do believe things that became national properties. So there was a search for the kind of stories I want to tell, and being an actor was the only thing that got me there. And once you enter and there's one thing about acting, once you start consistently performing and owning characters and not yourself, so you wake up to be a king one day, you wake up to be a commander.

One day you wake up to being a politician the other day.

So that's that's the most engaging part of life where there's only a set of actors in the director's calling action. And that's a moment that is away from everything that's real. And everyone on that set is just working towards just that one shot or that one direction.

So that that becomes the extreme crux of what of who I am, where you find the artist in the art and you just keep pushing yourself with this film. And what apparently happened was, as you because I think I come from that understanding of visual effects. So you ended up building a company, you ended up raising money, you ended up selling that idea, ended up selling the company. So there was a business involvement in all of that. And it also made brief investments in other companies at that point, whether it was gaming or other verticals, which I was bit interested in, but never actually ran a business for at least ten years.

I was only acting in films whether it was trying to make a career in Hyderabad, Bombay, if there was a career possible to be made across across the country in some format. But I think there what I understood was if we were constantly using, again, advancements in terms of how we were trying to tell the story, there was very little being done in the disruption on the back end of the business. It was still as old as it was being conducted a hundred years ago.

And so we said, OK, let's start with like how we using technology to create storytelling. We started using it to aid the process of making cinema better, whether it's the business of finding sellers in Binder's making marketplaces, using block change to enable content or whether it's opening different channels of really being able to produce content, which is just not mainstream, but is also culturally relevant. That is music, which is and also which is pop culture as a zone.

Right. So that was so that that kind of came on where the 360 started opening up. So if it was an investment in our children, whether it was here you go. We have a company that embarks and holds all of India's mythology in one place and can really become a house which is probably much larger than what a Disney or anything kind of offer to do to anyone in India. So so that really was the direction of each of these investments, whether it was in the to together, whether it was in partnership with Apple, with Quan in South India, where we created the first agency model in all of South India for the first time.

So I think we were able to find disrupting means to to end these new stories, to be told. So I think to me, being an entrepreneur or this kind of both go hand in hand because you got to take a few steps to make a new story work.

So what I get from you is in your career as a storyteller, like and you want to be a part of that process of storytelling, because in the modern day storytelling has cinema and the film industry in general attached to it. You're also trying to plug holes in the film industry. And at the same time, OK, if that's business opportunity, great. But at its core, you're trying to tell stories to leave a lasting impact. I know the way I look at stories and especially films and acting is that you give a piece of art some amount of your time and then you become a part of that infinity.

And I feel like you see things that way as well.

See, that is for sure. And Tomatoes never was looking for a business opportunity. It was looking for a need. If there is no need to me, there's no requirement to do a business either. If that's not something that I'm solving for the current market that I am in or I choose to be. Unless you're able to create something which is not there or you have seen in the movies or in the whether it's television, whether it's film or as long as they've been around, I've been around to in terms of making content so I can exactly understand what the point of all of these problems are, what what is needed for talent, what is needed for studio, what's in it for EC?

I think that's why I'm able to connect the dots in each of these business ventures of having not served one or more. Of those problems and pain points, so I think the intent to do business, I think is first very important, especially if you want to be in a creative landscape, because both go very high and it can be structured or processed the way other industries are. Although there's some some research that you can consistently follow there, there's still a consistent requirement for creatives in business to go and completely breaking away from business.

How come you have this peaceful, humble vibe in such a huge degree? Dude, like generally I mean, I'm not generalizing, but people from outside the film industry would look at the Hindi film industry and point fingers say things like, oh, it's the world's most glamorized rat race, or that's too much arrogance. And I mean the YouTube world. I end up meeting people who are on the fringes of that industry and just the general mainstream actors, mainstream directors.

I kind of looked at with this, hey, why are you so arrogant or why are you so angsty? And I don't blame those guys. I'm not I'm not saying that they're arrogant, angsty, but I do feel like generally actors in this country do a lot of pressure on them just because of the nature of fame in India. And then I see you just like kind of zoned out and life.

Now, is that a solid industry thing which I am not exposed to and everyone like that in the south, or is it just you see, well, at least I can speak for a bunch of people in this Southern film industry because I at least especially in Telugu, because a lot of us are friends and we work very closely with one another and I've worked with multiple of them, too. So one is a. It's is as much as you want to compete.

It's really. Wanting to make the biggest film or the most unique film or something that stands out with which others don't find it, that's that's really where the competing factor is. That is can from a city like Hyderabad or a city like Vizag, can you make a film that will stand out globally? That's really the agenda or the competition amongst a lot of it, especially in Telugu, at least I can say that much. See, there's independence, there's one independent cinema, there's one large cinema, which I mean, all of them kind of have their space that they're taking.

And in fact, they were also in the theatrical world. They have been the first industries to open back and sterilises. And that's time to draw numbers once again in a pandemic of 50 percent occupancies. So what is I think that's and there is very less of the outside association with it, whether it's here. There is a. A high street of energy that's that's around it, whether it's with paparazzi, with press, with fashion, with advertising, with music, I mean, there's a lot more happening in Bombay as a city.

So I don't put it as much as on the people in the industry. I mean, you meet people in retail, you meet people in fashion, you meet them in Bombay or everybody's slightly that energy, because I think Bombay, the city has that energy of everyone just driving a and. Like, every time I'm hearing about me for more than a week, I just run back home and listen, let me just sit down and think of everything.

There is these guys here and I go back and make sense of it. But I think that's more energy of each city that they're driving.

No, you're right, man. You know, the other the other thing I feel is especially about how the Indians in general and you can't generalize about India because I know it's very varied and I have a lot of South Indian friends. But as someone from the northern part of the country, what I see in common and you know, there are parallels in cricket as well. You see South Indian cricket, everyone's technically gifted, everyone's very craft specific. That means everyone cares a lot about the, you know, the fine details of the job they choose to do.

And I feel like that translates into this. Hold on. Let me give more of my mental energy to the job I'm doing rather than caring about all these superficial things. At least that's what I sense.

I don't know if it's something I mean. Well, if it's if it's me and I probably set it up. I mean, I think that's where it should be focused on what you're doing. Then see what other people do or says is their problem, not yours.

If you had to introduce the Telugu movie industry to a new audience and you had to pick like three films, could you could you recommend, like three of them, that people should enter the Telugu film experience through? And why those three specific films?

Well, that's a. If if you're today's audience, Wickremasinghe, let's pick the earliest in the round. There is a film which is Bahubali that I would show them obviously to show here you go to space where everything is about skill. We want a film or a story to be told larger than life. It's and it comes from a very Indian understanding of what India is right from the heart of what it is. If you see like our stories, whether they're ramyun or the moment they come with skill, they come with skill, they come with the war.

They come with everything that is big to be told in terms of a lesson to be learned. So, I mean, that's where our core storytelling comes from. And that's the reason I show that there's a film called BARTAL, which is a very old black and white film of a Western grammar, because folklore was something that was opened up partly, by the way. And Mirboo, that these two films really it's there is one film Mebazaa actually opens up.

A folktale which is written in the Mahabharata, which is only prevalent a few areas in non-driving. That story is not even heard in other places and a feature film has actually been made. And Big Stars did that film.

If you if I would take the other bet they would have been in a recent time, will be a recent film called Allovectin The Problem, which a lot of different groups where it consists of classic family drama whose basic values of father son understands Indian sentiments very deeply so. So that will be a step, whether it's that or authority already or any of the family drama films will be the same. The next one's the racial. And then I will show films like Care of Conservatism and others that are extremely small budget under two three quarters of budget, but are films that will touch your heart and and take you places that you want.

So I introduce them with these various genres of films and that all of this is possible. And whatever cinema that you resonate to you get to, you will get to see it in volume. Right? I will check these out.

And I mean, the obvious next clichéd question is, if you are to do the same for the Hindi film industry, for South audiences who have never, ever seen him develop, what would be your three films out of all the ones you've seen either Dungan or three idiots?

That would be the first because it encompasses how you can make such a large mainstream film with such simple drama. And that's a human emotion. Usually these films are usually pitted a small genre films, or that's how in a regional industry one would take a story like this. But you're in the Indian. Bollywood has figured out a way to end it in a very mainstream sense, and those stories become extremely large. That's that. Those would be my top.

Also a big fan of the Mother Munnabhai series. Those would be the most probable films I'll show because it touches every audience from eight to 80. Anybody watches that film will just kind of walk straight in.

And the second piece of cinema they probably show is, uh, I mean, whether it's Mark on our blog or anything in that world, which opens up the family drama of what not Indians are, what the culture of North India is, what's the music of not India? What's. I think all of that would kind of open that sphere up in family drama then. Uh, well, I would definitely show films, the extreme unique ones, whether it's films that are local chapters, whether it's films that obviously is now part of all of those indie films that have really created mainstream.

We have read those. Now you see a film like Pink. It's being remade in multiple languages, in multiple places. I think that's that's a lot of the films that Eisemann has been doing, all of those they create such a human drama across. And I think to just understand culture of not only understand the sensibility of how everyone is in each of their homes, it kind of takes you into the homes of not people. So I think that's that that that'll be cinema recommendations.

Again, this is just for perspective. This may not even make it to the main broadcast, but, you know, have you heard of the fish in the water metaphor? So it's basically like when you take a fish out of water, the fish realizes, oh, shit, I was in water all this time and it doesn't understand the nature of water while it's normally swimming. So the same thing goes with human beings and culture. When you you know, Callejo, you probably don't understand it as much because it's normalized for you.

So water is not an indulgence like, you know, when you're seeing it from the outside. What are some aspects of it?

According you see things? Again, I'm for I am a something in a sense, where I grew up in Chennai. I was born in Hyderabad, sorry. I was born in Chennai. We grew up in Hyderabad. So I grew up with Thumbhole. I grew up with the Telugu. I grew up with Dutney, which is in the United Right, which is spoken very differently. And and then Bombay, which is again almost like a mixed part in the sense which is which has so many different people that I meet you.

And when you go to Delhi, which is extremely different in terms of what that sensibility is. So it's also I can't differ very much because I'm not the best in terms of what I have taken from each of these pieces. But I think Bombay has been that place.

Where is the first exposure to everything? Whether or delivering it to her Punjabi music, it's or vice versa, or the Tamil music director sitting in along with, uh, sorry, Punjabi singer, I think all of that happens in Bombay quite seamlessly. And and I think it comes from the very different ways people conduct business. But in terms of a sensibility to art or storytelling, I think as Indians we pretty much operate the same. And if it's there is a main stream and there is a subculture and everybody differentiates between whether you are in Hyderabad, Bombay origin, and there is what is mainstream and that is what is subculture.

And there's that thin line now that is kind of getting filled up with Oktay and digital waves going higher. So that's that's where it is right now. Speaking of our storytelling, art and culture.

I do feel like this is where the Indian epics come into play ramyun Malhotra.

It's the same kind of story, or at least the backbone of the story is the same all across the east, west, north, south.

I got what I wanted to use at a favorite comic book. Is the comic book of omerta together a goal of mine and lifelessly from an artistic standpoint is have you watched Dragonball Zevo? I want to make a mob horror Dragonball Z like a dragon boldi style Mahabharat because I believe that the art that they've shown in Dragonball it applies very well to the mob are a great example of a Dragon Baldie style.

Indian epic is the old Japanese version of ramyun that they had made. Have you seen this? Where a very beautiful tan, Rohnert and I do feel like children are drawn naturally to overly saturated colours. You know, these these kind of larger than life special effects, which sometimes only come into play through animation. So are you working towards something like that or are you working with animation as well? Because I'm sure you'll have something more Valvoline style in the pipeline for yourself on a more personal level.

I believe that that's what your goal is for which you've partnered up with Gatta. But are you also thinking of animation or. You know what the question to you is just kind of let this of her theory of mind explored in this podcast. Why have you partnered up with them in the first place?

If you needed to consistently make content, which is about Indian culture, then you got to go find the place that has been making and consistently writing in Indian culture. So one is there's no bigger than a bunch of together to be part of. So I think that is a no brainer to be is to I question why was there? The second thing is, yes, obviously we partnered for the first thing is to really scale up films like Mythology, Where Iranica Now is the next film that we're working on as as one of those properties.

And the idea was to to also create a bank of art, which is now unique, whereas C there's been always a classic traditional sense of what animation was. There was bits and pieces of of Omniture together, the collected that in the past. And today also you see a lot of animation which is targeted towards children. And there is very little whether it's in the sense of a graphic novel or in the sense of anything that's postin or which is adult to consume, it's either you go back to a nostalgic value of basic and it continues to stay at that level, but nothing after that.

Now, the idea is to explore various forms of this as much as we have things for things that's already out there, seven and above is to try to take a direction for how you get a much younger audience into it and much older audience into it. So as a company right now, it's divided with mythology. Folk folktale Braveheart's and wit and wisdom in that in that format. And the idea is to scale each of them up if it is to take the directions of of actually going live action and recreating monuments and stuff that used to be, whether it's the mountains, whether it's the Rajputs go in that direction of creating them back and getting them either to scale on different authorities or go back and create one of our own in terms of pipeline.

So that's that's the direction of where we see that a lot of content can be exposed in this. And and, yes, there's a global intent in terms of trying to take all of this and to see that there is enough of an overseas audience, which is Indian that's consuming it. And we're we're also doing is creating multiple versions that can go into Thai and all old South-East Asian languages. We want to travel along with the mythology where the mythology stood, whether it's Indonesia, Bali, why go back and take those stories to where they actually belong?

And we're also in the process of creating a bunch of stories. We actually have a bunch of Romans from the Moriches that have come and some from early Cayman Islands that have common things of Hinduism that have gone in different places. The idea is to bring back and take a more historical approach than a devotional and a religious approach to it.

I love that idea of. You taking my theology exactly where it went and then like creating for them as well. I was thinking of where to go. I mean, there was a place where the Central Valley, you will see a large chariot of Kananga to the center of this place. If you go to the airport, you will be able to see also in a movie. And second, you see the journey of the ocean between the dealers of the Austrians.

That was the beginning of the book. Now, if there's so much visual reference there, I think that it is directing us to get there and see if this is a place where you have these stories.

You know, that's that's what kind of hurts me about the history that start in Indian schools. We learn way too much about the medieval times, the recent times, about the independence movement when there is like this glorious history that you should be learning about pre medieval times. For example, this whole thing about Indian dynasties when they say never was so negative that they took Indian culture to Southeast Asia and spread. As far as the Philippines, it's not spoken about enough.

And then hopefully, you know, that's what the art of storytelling might do, because they say that borders are gradually disappearing as the human species is evolving. So storytelling is what's really going to create these soft borders, if you will.

So in a way, you you're doing the same thing that the caller dynasty did.

But in a much more 2021 context, the I got to bring you back to that ramyun question. The Japanese ramyun. Have you watched it? Because, I mean, I was born in ninety three. I believe that movie released in ninety one or ninety two is pieces of what to check out the movie, because anyone who's born in the early 90s, that's a reference point when it comes to drama.

And it's not the TV shows, it's it's those cartoons that were drawn out and it's these gorgeous cartoons. But if I think of an arm of I think human, that's what pops in my head like that's my visual reference point. And it's possibly one of the most beautiful animated movies.

I said I'm an atheist, so I got a little different from mine that came to me than it is. Right.

But I mean, check it out, because my big hope is that there should be a filmmaker who will recreate epics in that light.

The other thing I've got to ask you is about your whole, you know, business dealings with A.I. and Blocked and then all these very, very futuristic tomes, which possibly, you know, a lot of people generally I mean, again, this is me generalizing, but I see a lot of people in media and in the media industry all over India not really paying that much attention to tech.

It's very, very few people. It's probably all the season media entrepreneurs who suddenly look at tech and say, oh, wait, it fits into my business and can really disrupted. So I have two questions for you. The first is, who introduced you to, like, this whole aspect of tech? Is it all your business friends from Quand like Dhruv? Is it is it just people your meeting? Is it some stuff you're starting? And the second question obviously is how do you see the next 20 deals unfolding for the media business?

Because I know that you're planning towards that.

See, first I was introduced to it. I thing I do. My first business before I started doing was you fix that becomes the backbone of everything that you're doing that. And I started off as early as two thousand. Five, so now that I think was very, very basic, you have to understand each thing at a very, very primitive level and you got and anybody who learned at that point learned from Basic and went up because they kept going up with them.

So I think I was part of that curve. And what I got to see, whether from a different point standpoint, whether it was in Boggabilla or other visual effects based films that I did, is the is the advancement in order to picture and sound consistently. And and when you see a new constituent I kept traveling abroad, you kept seeing of how the best in the world kept doing it. And then you realize there's all I mean, whether it's America, whether it's I mean, especially Hollywood, right.

Where everything is culminated and one, whether it's requisite cinema, whether it's media, all of them, or in one single garment in terms of and that's how the big corporations are really built for them. Now, here there is a IT industry which is very separate, the tech industry, which is a separate film, which is a film and television which is separate from one another. Now, the idea is to pick each of them in terms of best practices and start using it in the format.

So block chain given in a sense where it made it easier for us to start selling our films to overseas buyers and other places that are much more seamless format than there is.

Basically, you use take to remove the middleman like in Blockin.

OK, so that's that's something that we started doing. So I think each of that's the first big advancement rather that we did. This second piece was consistently whether it's eEye or whether it was R or we are there, we've been investing in it. See, the way of viewing content has changed the way you your relationship to a star or your relationship to a movie, your relationship to a merchandise that you have from a movie. All of that is changing as generations keep asking.

And now if you're born as a as a somebody who loves films and been watching films all life, that's one direction of growth. If you're born a gamer and you were consistently in a gaming world where things have been engaged to you, so you come, then that becomes a generational shift of how you think and how you are. You are you relate with content, rather. So now as a storyteller, whether it's flat, whether it's 360, whether it's around, whether you're in it, whether you wrote it, I should be able to tell a story.

And I and any tech, if it's a visual medium which needs to connect with people, requires content and storytelling to be at its worst. I mean, to devise the surge of what it is so great because there's so much content on it or they become platforms for content to be there. So so ultimately, all these developments and advancements have been in that direction and. Got it. And also what it helps us all is create a 360 amongst all the big large film properties that we can't even do that.

You trying to become India's biggest media entrepreneur? Like, is that like a personal goal? Are you are you just kind of focusing on making our industry better? I don't know.

And it's I it's every day you wake up, you find a problem, you've got to go fix it and you keep fixing it. Whatever that takes you, takes you. But then I have a very unique point. I work for a company. I work for two companies like together. And so these productions are over 50 years old. And so if you are so much in the past, you need to have a clear vision of what what's up there in the future.

So what is it for companies? Because this now is to create a forever game is how do you consistently be here, whether we're around or not? The stories need to lead the direction and the vision to do whatever comes in the future. So I think that's the that's the job I'm given, I guess.

But why don't other famous people think like you, like people at your level of fame?

Why aren't they, you know, thinking in these directly about that famous like you think that I mean I mean, you know, you you have a pedestal of fame to work out of.

Just because I want you got me on the show is not. I'm all I. No, you know what I mean.

Like, why why don't why don't other mainstream stars take this white. Well, I guess I don't know. I mean, it's it's where you come from. I mean, I don't know if all of them like the cinema that that I do. So, you see, everyone has a cinema as a very personal thing. It's what story you like to tell you could be telling them. And what if it's the business aspect of it? It's probably because that's been where I come from.

That's been first time before I I ran an office, before I got on, before I ran a film set. I ran a proper office. So I think that's. So you hit kind of things and it's on an Excel sheet much faster than anything else, the next section of this podcast is about like happiness and human values in general. Before I get into the questions, I just want to recommend a movie to you, which I think you might enjoy.

You've probably already seen it. It's called Soul. It's Pixar Soul on Hot Stuff. I checked it out.

Superville, you spoke about new generations and how they interact with content. They call my entire generation the mental health issues generation. That's going to be the big challenge for everyone living through the 2020. So everyone born after, say, 1990 dealing with a lot more mental health issues than generations born prior to that. So it's always one of those movies that just answers so many questions.

Very, very beautiful. What did you like about the movie? What is a. So even if you're telling something philosophical, it Belgians are just simple, enduring in an entertaining manner. All of those their entire family feels like it's like a family of yours. The music teacher feels like a music teacher. You know, I'm seeing this. The gold feels like a gold that you could have had. I mean, everything any part of that film, you can be a city.

You are part of your life, and it will seem like it's yours. So I think that's the beauty of modern Pixar is done over the years with many different films of theirs. Yeah, one hundred percent. And I think all of these animation films, because they're not really in they don't take a definitive detective to life. They're open to how you want to tell it. I think that's that's what animation offers in terms of storytelling.

I would say Up was my favorite animated film up to some point. Then it became insideout and then it became Soul. Soul is not My All-Time favorite animated film. And then I realized that directed by the same guy, I forgot his name, Brian, something I believe. I can't remember his name. He's a Danish guy. But man, again, I got to take you to that three movie question. If you had to pick three animated movies which have had an impact on you, what would you suggest to the audiences?

I think the first would probably be Toy Story, which had the largest impact on me when I watched it first. I guess that's the first film. The second. Would be animation in terms of cartoons, whether it's Tom and Jerry or Mickey Mouse or everyone in that world universe, from Goofy to whether they were from any of the places, Bugs Bunny. I think those are characters that is the child who grow up and start holding a group of friends.

I do need a group of real friends and you need a group of friends that you want to friends to be like. I think that's all those characters kind of offer. So I put film and those characters all together in one growing up. I recently saw something. The Love, Death and robots losing it. No, no, it's on Netflix. You must watch it. 10 different stories. Each one is a different story and issued on this one called the three words or three, something like that.

It's the first film that's it just blows you in terms of what storytelling they've taken it into. Yeah, I'll check it out.

Revilla animation does a lot for you. If you're in any creative field, it just opens up your head to someone else's head like, oh, wow, this person saw these colors and these textures and these movements. I gotta I gotta ask you, I mean, the vibe I always get from you, as I said earlier, was that send out with twenty six year old version of you be happy with where you are right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Video I am. See one is one of them lucky enough to have been born in a very fortunate place. That's one of from that whatever cinema they choose, whatever business that I choose to do or anything in that in that manner was done purely on, on the not on results, but on every day's work, progress. And what you learn, for example, every film that I did, I got to learn something far more than what I knew before.

If it's a film that I just showed in the jungles, I learned about elephants and jungles and and the world like I never did before. They play the film, but I'm now an excellent I well, I learned about the 80s in the nineties that I only heard of in bits and pieces is that you derive your joy from learning, learning and recreating.

Getting people to explore cinema gives you an opportunity to recreate a time place and and take a bunch of people there. So I think that's that's what really my joy comes from in being able to create that scene. That's really the most significant thing that we can do for any other living creature is is the ability to create, whether it's you're able to create a partner, some able to create a show doesn't matter what is good. And as your and the time that's spent on creating is always the most joyful because it comes with no real burden or impact.

Right.

And it comes out of your heart. You enter the state of law to create often such a beautiful thing.

It's like it's collective art. It's a lot of artists from whether it's you're a photographer, whether you're an art director, whether you're a painter, your dancer, you all are coming together to create a one single story that's going to last year for eternity. Whether you're around or not, that's going to be there forever. So I think that's that's where this comes from.

OK, Ranna, so you've answered most of the questions that I had planned out, which were more specific to business and happiness and mental health and films, but we got to do Twitter questions with you.

So, you know, a lot of questions have come in actually about the opposite of happiness, which is just tough times dealing with fame, especially when you are a public figure. So much of a life is like out there. So have you had to find, for example, someone called J.A.G. asks. In the past, Anna has faced some health issues and maybe some issues in his relationships. So keeping the movies aside, how is it possible for him to be so creative?

And what is the thing that keeps him pushing his own limits in terms of a professional friend? How do you rise from the past and what beliefs make you rise? I've I've come from a firm belief that if there's something that's putting you down, it's only when you overcome that is what makes you who you are. And so whatever challenge that's been, whether it's health or film or anything in that sense, always thinking, you know, really got you beat this thread.

And that's the kind of guy I am. And I've always believed there was really never a sense of competition because they just never assume those competing with anybody or anything, because there was a story that I was telling which is always unique and didn't matter if it cost to the cause of root cause. One to me, a story is a story in that sense. And whether it's an animated 30 second shot that I make or a 30 hour series, it goes with the same building.

So I think if you remove the sense of finances and why you're doing what you're doing, if you just get to an everyday sense of it and look at each of the material that you're you've got to work in as a as a separate thing. Right. And then that's to me, that's that that's one part of it. And with that comes for film. But being famous is really a job. It's separate of all of these things. It's certain things you have to do.

It needs to be done. There are certain conscious, conscious things you have to do or exercises. But I mean, it's and I also never bothered so much in terms of doing the right thing, wrong thing. So whatever happened, kept happening and I kept moving forward.

Did you have any dogfaces, though, on a personal level, like did you go into any form of self-pity at any point? I mean, it's normal. I know. I know. I'm not I'm not talking about if you stretch that self-pity emotion. But did you ever feel a sense of darkness around you? The other definitely at times I see it will be times when you are see those victims, when you're super successful in film, but then your health is stigmatized.

You don't know if you're going to put yourself back to doing another film again. Now, that's a dark place to be. But how does that change is if you move out of it and find what your purpose is actually and if that's if there's a story that the story is what drove me out of it a year ago, you need to get this story that. So I think each of us will take a piece from what we love. Like I remember like I said this in an interview earlier, like there was a time when I had the day I got diagnosed to remember when I was when the doctors came out and said I had some serious amount of people, a bunch of organs that really without a doubt now that it's information that never came to me as a it's true.

Too much information to process. But then the only thing that got me in, like probably two days from that is I was in the same city that I went to this hospital in America, in Rochester. I there was the Infinity Ward and I had the four thousand to. So my only shows your part of the film doesn't show you the whole film. So I knew what I was doing, but not the rest of the Avengers do. And when I went and watched Infinity War, the end of the film, although it was just that that was is now to me somewhere in space and so off to watch a film where you've done for that, you start looking like that character because you're big and you also have a beard like that and you're like him in that context.

And then it brings you out of to joy and it brings you back to life. So so to me, cinema stories, comics that kind of brought me back to what I needed to do. Wow. So in likewise, each one will find what they love the most, whether it's music for somebody, whether it's reading for somebody, it doesn't matter what it is. You just got to find what you love and then find the best in the league.

For example, what I do know is not very different from what I did when I was a kid. Like I like the same thing when I get to like the same things when I grew up, it's just different function of how I behave with them.

I appreciate you sharing this heaviness like it's not an easy thing to say on a public platform. So I appreciate that. Jalal Craughwell asks, Do you have a sense of belief in God and does it play any role in your career?

One, see, there's a belief system and a belief in self, which is very, very powerful. And if it's a sense of God, to me, it's a sense of what you are able to do with yourself, is that that's that's really the energy that is. And I'm not religious in a format where I leave faith in something else or someone else. I but I'm a great reader or learner of everything. That's all that comes from ancient knowledge.

Do you read spiritual books have been on and off, but really in a direction of stories, whether it's I mean, it's anything, whether it's a book through it comes to me like a story doesn't come to me like anyone seeing something so. Right. So that's always how I've been taking things in. And from that story will come morals, values, thoughts, philosophy, everything.

OK, Rishabh, when money asks, how does Rahner juggle huge business work and stay consistent and avoid burnout because it might get overwhelming. And this is something that any creative professional faces.

She worries because I guess I'm just thrown with stuff that's so new all the time. There's it's very hard to get burned out because you're not doing the same thing at all. I mean, if you take fifteen years of my career, there's not one thing that I've done that I have done the second night. It's either been scaling back to a different degree or doing something that's one hundred percent different from what I did. So I think that keeps you going consistently that because everything is you would say every time trying to figure out how to get it done.

And and finally, you're doing things that only bring you joy, because in the sense it brings the other's joy and once want to put that out. So I guess we both ways it just works. Yeah.

I also want to echo this verse from the guitar that kind of popped up in my head through your definition of joy, which is Carmenere, why they got us Demopolis Sugar Rattana, which means that you just give you a little girl without getting muddy results or competition or wins or losses, and then that's it.

That's that'll get you to where you are. OK, the nanogram asks, do you listen to podcasts because you do seem like a dude who listens to podcast, I don't know why if if yes. What type of podcast you listen to and what do you enjoy?

Anything that is random, irreverent, ridiculous nonsense is an extremely unique in terms of point of view I like to listen to. It doesn't matter what topic whatsoever. It can be about an automobile, it can be about somebody going to space. Doesn't matter.

But just if I get a point of view that is very new and unique, I would like to maybe check out certain episodes of that and visual like certain episodes.

OK, OK.

This is a very nice question. Raghu Desmukh asks a huge fan of Maharat. How important is the Mahabharat for Rana in real life? How does he implement lessons from the Mahabharata in real life?

It's I think that's the beauty about this. A big deals like every part of it, you can piece to what you are wanting to do. If you assume you are fighting a war and you guard against it and your tasks become your enemies and you need to get them done. I mean, that's that's a little way of taking everything that you've read in the Mabahith and putting it to use. And if you see after a point, all these characters become energies.

And I see if if I'm saying if the individual Maduna is channelling you, but when you're doing a certain task, then you become the originator and you get it done or vice versa. You want to be another character, get it done. So it's you if you can take them, take a story strong enough as an energy and be able to implement it in life. I think that's that's pretty much how wide these were written in the first place.

Yeah, that's that's a beautiful instrument.

And obviously the follow up question for me is, is there a particular character of the maverick that stays with like for me, DaGian, that I've got I've got a bow and arrow tattoo for the same reason, but for the exact reason that you said for me it's always been different at different times because you you are thrown in a different position, whether it is do you become a guru, then at a point you become seduced by all those characters are not right.

Not wrong. There's still the green. That's that's really what the what are my mind is made of atoms. There's nothing that extremely is right or wrong with it. There is a midway and agree that we're all living in and we got to figure the right and keep moving forward. Right.

Slightly controversial question, but feel free to answer it in whatever way you wish. Nickens one one nine two one five five nine asks. All we see is the bright side of the film industry and ranaghat some light on anything that's dark that the junta wouldn't know.

I think there's nothing really dark. I mean, dark is what's really made of it. So it's a place where someone's coming to tell stories. So it's not really complicated in that sense. And see what I what I can tell now, which I couldn't tell before, is the sense of amount of opportunity that's available right now. I think if it's the fourth industrial revolution within its content and stories that have to be confronted with everything, if you will, whether you want to launch a brand, whether you want to make a film, it's the idea or the core piece of storytelling that matters across the board.

So I think today the sense of being a storyteller or being in the creative industry has many, many more books and and gives you all longevity in terms of career. There's no other career that you can do is for as long as you live. I'm saying I can continue being an actor for as long as I live if I can consistently be good at it. The same applies to a musician, X, Y, Z, whatever you want. So that's that's the beauty of the arts.

It's got no age, it's got no limit to bar in terms of anything. And it used to be. Got it.

Interesting question. Amet asks, how did Rahner handle the pressure of not telling anybody a Pachelbel?

Well, there was no one logical answer to it. And whatever happened, happened true. True to the character I played. And me, I was just every time someone asked that, I was very happy that someone asked it, because I know that someone that's going to watch the film when part two comes up, are you alright sharing your SO again, the character you played and whether you're to bulk up for it so.

Could you just run the audiences through the bulking process? This is what planet and asks and also the follow up question is, would you ever do it again when you bulk up that much for a character so you never know again for sure.

There's no two ways about it, but does it take a toll on your body?

But that's the fun about this job. No, you'd want to be the same guy every single morning. I mean, you're on a different scene. You're going to be a different human beings who look different. But that obviously has been the toughest human character to ever be in. And it was weird to do the words six to eight minutes every single day for about four years of my life and training twice a with or without very little or no breaks at all.

And you repeat that figures in terms of consistency.

And that's what you get, is your gut asks, is there any sort of a void in your life right now? And if there is, how what are you doing to fill it or are you thinking of filling it? Nothing.

The only way that there my life is the theaters in Bombay are not open, that they're much not and just waiting for most of the cold vaccine to be distributed amongst everyone and get movies back again. And that's how I will fill that void with putting my film in. So that's that's all it is. It's beautiful.

We are looking forward to everything you create. Man, on a personal level, I'm looking for everything you create in partnership with America together. You've kind of made of a boy's dream alive, and I would say so over all the boys and girls out there. So God bless you, brother. Thank you for bringing my theology back, even if you are just starting out of that process. And thank you for being a storyteller. I'm sure there's a lot more stories coming out of that mind.

And as a businessman, just admiring what you're doing, again, using your fame to, like, build things and just taking it as far as it goes. Good luck with everything, man. God bless you.

Before you leave, I have to ask you to share just three quick pieces of life advice for the youth.

Three pieces of life always is. One, you will always have Nazeer saying you can do this or you can do that because it but that's the only reasons that they're seeing that is because they haven't done it before, that's all. So which and every time someone says that, which means it's an opportunity and it will be the first one being able to do that, I think that's what one needs to take. The second is life is through things I do, whether it's good, whether it's bad, I'll keep throwing things at you.

But unless you're not quick enough to just speak the good and drop the bad wind speed, you will just be going backwards and not forward. So I think whatever life throws at you, be quick at understanding this is right and this is where you want to be and moving forward. And I think there is a long term relevance to everything, whether you're making a film or whether you're making a T-shirt, whether you're whatever field or remember what you make is ten years from now should, in fact influence or be the directive to some change of the world that you want to see.

So I think these are the three things that I probably leave. Thank you, Ron.

I'm going to let you go. Thank you, brother. God bless you. Keep growing. Keep sharing all those stories and all those ideas. Thank you.

Bye bye.