Hyderabad: Before Heropanti’s release, Tiger Shroff was always accompanied by his glamorous co-star Kriti Sanon. This is the same Kriti, whose first ever film, Sukumar’s 1:Nenokkadine opposite Mahesh Babu, sank at the box office. But few remember Kriti from her Telugu debut, because during the promos, it was Mahesh all the way. In Heropanti, however, she’s all over the news, as she has been given equal ‘weight’ in the promos, alongside Tiger Shroff and today, no one dare say ‘Kriti Sanon, who?’
The case isn’t typical to Kriti Sanon alone.
In Bollywood, live promotions and telly promos, play a major role in creating the hype for the movies, but in Tollywood, the female leads, barring a few stars, like Samantha, Tamannaah and Anushka, more are skipping promotions. “We always want the female leads to come and promote the film, but some of the actresses don’t come for promotions. Actress Nayanthara clearly mentions in her agreement that she won’t come for any promotional event,” says director, B. Jaya.
The problem is that many actresses are now Mumbai-based as they are also doing Hindi films. These actresses taste success with Telugu, but their first preference, remains Hindi.
Ileana is often criticised, for shifting her focus to Hindi films. In fact, the star avoids the Telugu press completely. Rakul Preet Singh did a month-long promotion for Yaariyan, but when it came to her Telugu film Venkatadri Express, she vanished saying she was busy with her Hindi film shooting.
“It all depends from film to film. If you had watched Himmatwala’s promotions, Tamannaah was missing from the scene, because of her character in the film and it was Ajay Devgan’s film entirely. But when it came to Humshakals, you can see the very same Tamannaah doing the publicity run very well,” says Rakul Preet Singh.
“When we sign a Hindi film, we have to sign 30 days for the promotion part too, so accordingly, we block our days. When it comes to the South the release dates are postponed and sometimes they suddenly release a film and we are just not able to come on such short notice,” the actress adds. Rakul also says it’s not right that the lead actors only get visibility. “For my first Hindi film, most of the team was new, so we went for a long promotion drive. The very same happened in Heropanti, where both are new,” says Rakul.
But director Jaya moves the blame to the stars.
“The lead actresses aren’t giving Telugu films much importance. In the early days, the actor and actresses had longer lifespans, but now only actors survive, actresses are shortlived.”
Director Sukumar agrees, when asked about his film 1, which had Kriti Sanon. “Kriti was busy throughout with her Hindi film and she arrived after the film released, it was too late.
But if Telugu producers are feeling slighted by actresses, isn’t it time they too had a clause ensuring availability for promotions?
