Prakash Rai also known as Prakash Raj , is an actor and producer in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil film industries: Sandalwood, Tollywood and Kollywood respectively.
Prakash Raj was born Prakash Rai in Mangalore and his mother tongue is Tulu. Now he has shifted his base to Chennai due to numerous offers from Telugu and Tamil films. He was persuaded to change his last name from Rai to Raj by veteran South-Indian director K. Balachander.
He has acted in Kannada ,Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi films. His original name 'Prakash Rai' in Kannada screen was rechristened to 'Prakash Raj' by K. Balachander for Prakash Rai's debut movie 'Duet'.
Prakash Rai is a very famous actor in South India for a wide variety of roles he has performed, most notably as a villain and of late, as a character artiste, in Tamil and Telugu. He is considered to be one of the most natural actors in the film industry, and has a good reputation for his acting skills. He is also the highest paid villain in Indian cinema. He was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, Netru, Indru, Naalai.
His latest production venture in Tamil Mozhi, directed by Radhamohan, starring himself, Jyothika, Prithviraj and Swarnamalya was a blockbuster. He recently acted as a rich businessman in Venkat Prabhu's second film Saroja, a box-office hit
Recently he took on the mantle of producer and has produced several movies in Tamil (Kollywood). Most of the movies he produced are box-office hits and also are critically acclaimed. His movies are generally acclaimed by the audience as good quality movies and are also considered as family entertainers. Also as a producer his selection of movies typically have natural storylines. His movie named Poi (lie in English) which is directed by his mentor and veteran director K. Balachander, who is incidentally directing his 101st film was a non grosser. It has Uday Kiran as hero. Both Director ( K Balachander) and Producer (Prakash Raj) acted in this movie as Good and Bad.
In a recent interview to a Tamil Satellite Channel he said he is Agnostic. He dubs for his characters in various languages he plays. He is well versed in Tulu, Tamil, Malayalam, English, Kannada and Telugu. He considers K. Balachander as his Mentor.
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