Rao Ramesh

Career

Rao Ramesh was born in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh to actor Rao Gopal Rao (a great telugu film actor iconic villian roles) and Rao Kamala Kumari (a highly acclaimed performer of a folk-story-telling-art-form named 'Hari Katha' and an authority of Ramayana and Mahabharata). He was born and brought up in Chennai (he can speak Tamil better than most natives). His initial schooling was from Sri Ramakrishna Mission School in T. Nagar and later completed a degree in Communications before getting in to 'Still-photography'. During his photography days, he used to spend countless hours in British and American libraries in Chennai to study books on photography. He later joined K. S. Prakasa Rao, a cinematographer and brother of K. Raghavendra Rao, as an assistant before going to Bangalore to learn industrial photography. Around this phase in life, he was a big fan of Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic and wanted to join them. In order to achieve this goal, he even started applying to american universities to learn special effects photography. However, this did not materialise due to multiple personal reasons and thus, after Rao Gopal Rao's death in 1994, Ramesh Rao found himself busy managing family affairs for the next 7 years. During these 7 years, he was a voracious reader of accliamed writers of prose and poetry. His favorite was the accliamed telugu poet C. Narayana Reddy (Pen name 'Cinare') whose works he used to recite entire volumes by heart. Around this time he also tried working on a couple of film scripts and wanted to direct films, but his mother suggested that he should probably act because of his command over Telugu and Tamil languages - especially for his superior diction and to follow in his father's foot steps. He initially began acting in a TV serial by Ghantasala Ratna Kumar, but the production was shelved amidst schedules. Rao Ramesh then got an offer to act as the brother of Simran in Balakrishna’s Seema Simham (2002), but failed to find film offers immediately after, despite being the son of an iconic actor. He subsequently moved back to Chennai and started acting in serials like Pavitra Bandham and Kalavari Kodalu, and shot for over 1000 episodes in the space of four and half years. Although most TV actors resort to getting dubbed, Rao Ramesh conitnued to render his own dubbing which gave him an opportunity to hone his skills.

Rao Ramesh then appeared in a small role in Okkadunnadu (2007), before getting a breakthrough role in Krish's Gamyam (2008). Portraying a reformed naxalite, he received critical acclaim for his portrayal and the film went on to become one of the highest grossing Telugu films of the year. His subsequent films, Kotha Bangaru Lokam (2008), Avakai Biryani (2008) and S. S. Rajamouli's Magadheera (2009) were box office hits, while his role in the latter as a hunchbacked old tantrik won him further acclaim. Throughout the early 2010s, Rao Ramesh became a popular supporting actor and described that by 2015, he was in the "best phase of his career". His secret to success strategy has been (strange but true..) to reject scores of acting offers because they would often be similar hit roles, to avoid stereo typing and he stuck to this in spite of struggling times. This strategy finally paid off as he was gradually offered different types of characters.

Personally, Rao Ramesh is a very private person who socilaises rarely and prefers staying at home with family when he is free.

Tamil