Boy-next-door to action image, not a cake-walk

With young actor Sree Vishnu's action role in 'Thippara Meesam,' going down the drain, the transition of boy-next-door into an action hero looks to be a tough journey in T-town.

Earlier, aggressive lover boy Vijay Devarakonda failed to pull in crowds with his action-centric movies like 'NOTA' and 'Dear Comrade,' amply showing that attaining action image is not a cake-walk. Young actor Sharwanand known for his light-hearted roles in 'Run Raja Run' and 'Mahanubhavudu' failed to impress as a gangster in 'Ranarangam'.

"Action stars aren't born overnight and they need to build their image brick by brick," says director Gunasekhar, who made action films like 'Okkadu' and 'Sainikudu'. "Mahesh Babu attained action image with 'Okkadu' which was a tale of an youngster from Old City who takes on the might of a factionist and eventually becomes a superhero in the movie," he adds.

It seems to be true, since lover boy Ram Pothineni, took a lot of time to taste big success with an action film 'iSmart Shankar' and put his career on top gear. "Ram has now become the sought-after action hero and his upcoming movies will strengthen his image. Once he was signed up for love stories like 'Nenu Sailaja' and comedy flicks 'Ready', now it is a different story altogether," says director Sriwass.

Actually, young actors love to bash up goons in dozens but it is difficult for the audience to digest all of them and only few action stars emerge out of a 15-odd actors.

"Jr NTR was the only one among the young bunch of heroes to become action hero almost overnight with 'Aadi,' while Allu Arjun and Prabhas had to wait for 'Desamuduru' and 'Chatrapathi' respectively to attain larger-than-life image and erase their lover boy tag," says director Teja, who mostly made movies around boys-next-door like 'Jayam' and "Nijam' but re-esablished the action image of Rana with 'Nene Raju Nene Mantri'. "Our script justified the transition of a small-time money lender into a hardcore politician and the audience lapped it up," he reasons.

Whereas, ace director Puri Jagannath changes the look of his heroes to fit them into his 'larger-than-life' scripts. "Puri Jagannath made Mahesh Babu, Ravi Teja, Allu Arjun and Ram into fighting machines.

Now, all set to transform the image of new sensation Vijay Devarakonda into an invincible action hunk in his next action flick because he can't depict heroes as soft and timid." says producer DVV Dhanayya.