Prabhas in a still from Baahubali.
The phenomenal success of S S Rajamouli's
Baahubali has made its lead actor Prabhas realise something very important - that the success of any film should be attributed to its team and not to the star.
"This success has taught me that a star alone can't be credited for a film's success, which is usually achieved by a team. No star is bigger than the success of a film," Prabhas told IANS in an interview.
The success of
Baahubali, according to the 35-year-old actor, belongs to every member of the team who worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth release.(Also Read:
Prabhas' Baahubali Pose Inspires Ganesha Idols)
"Firstly, it's not easy to make a film on such a grand scale. The bigger challenge nowadays is to take a film to the theatres. In our case, we didn't face any difficulty in releasing, which was only possible because of meticulous planning and team work," he said.
However, Prabhas doesn't consider himself as a national star yet.
"It felt nice when stars like Ranbir Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan appreciated my performance. Rajinikanth sir called and congratulated me. Such things have never happened before. I am glad that I'm popular. People recognise wherever I go but it's too early to be called a national star," he said.
Baahubali released in multiple languages and the film earned over Rs 600 crore at the ticket window. It also completed 100 days successfully in select theatres in the country last week.Although Prabhas admits they wanted the film to succeed, he said that they never anticipated this kind of a response.
"When a film of this scale is made, you want it to be a blockbuster because mere success won't help the producers recover money. What surprised us the most was that the film did extremely well in Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam too," said Prabhas, who would like to thank Rajamouli the most for this success.
"If Rajamouli is the brain and heart of
Baahubali, the producers are its skeleton, holding everything together and the fans are the blood. Rajamouli deserves all the laurels, but he's so modest that he diverts all of it towards his team," he added.
Baahubali is now gearing up for its television premiere this week in Telugu and Hindi.
"I hope it becomes the most viewed Indian film on television. It's quite possible as this is not some regular commercial film that you watch once and forget. My cousins, who've already watched it a few times, have said that the experience had gotten better with each viewing," he said.
Prabhas will start shooting for the second part of
Baahubali from November.
"I've already started growing my moustache. Since my shoulder surgery, I haven't been in the best shape as I was advised not to work out. Now that I'm doing much better, I'll start gymming soon. I weighed around 95 kgs in the first part. I have to maintain it and look muscular too," he said.
Unlike other stars, Prabhas said that he does not feel pressurized to deliver a minimum of two films in a year. He spent nearly two years on the first part of the film and may spend another year on part two.
"Even if I was required to spend four years, I'd have happily worked. You get such an opportunity once in a lifetime and it would be stupid to jeopardize it," said Prabhas.