Rahul Dev explains why south films have done better at box office than Bollywood in 2024: 'Difference is...'| Exclusive

Rahul Dev is a popular Indian actor and former model who predominantly works in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam language films. The actor recently impressed the audience with his role in Punjabi film Warning 2. 

Rahul Dev, who has been a part of several Bollywood and South hits like Okkadunnadu, Mass, Indian, Champion and more, in an exclusive interview with DNA, talked about the recent underperformance of Bollywood films at the box office in comparison to south films and explained the reason behind the same. He also opened up on being typecast as villain in the film industry. 

When asked about his views on south cinema performing better at the box office than Bollywood films, Rahul Dev cited a comparison with Bollywood's performance last year and said, "If we see, in 2023, Shah Rukh Khan had three back to back hits with Jawan, Pathaan and Dunki and that too after a long time. Sunny Deol's Gadar 2 was a major success and there were other films too that worked very well at the box office. The only difference is the audience. The audience in south is very loyal. "

He further added, "In Tamil, Telugu cinema, release of films are celebrated like festivals. Vahan par leading actors ki film Diwali ki tarah hoti hai (Over there, leading actors' films are celebrated like Diwali). Everything stops for them and people rush to theatres to watch their films." 

Rahul Dev is popularly known for playing antagonist in the film and giving the heroes a tough fight which makes a film interesting for the viewers. When asked if he ever felt that he was getting typecast as a villain, the actor replied, "Yes, in the starting I used to feel this. When you do negative roles, there is only negative emotions. So, in that you don’t get to explore other emotions. You won’t get any melodramatic scenes. So I did felt that I have been typecast as villain. But now, with OTT things have changed a little bit. But still, I won’t say, I am extremely happy about what’s coming my way. I mean I think I have a lot to offer but it’s just that something is sort of a miss." 

Meanwhile, Rahul Dev will be next seen in the movie Welcome To The Jungle which also stars Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Sanjay Dutt, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Disha Patani, Raveena Tandon, Lara Dutta and Jacqueliene Fernandez among others in key roles and is scheduled to release in December this year. 

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