Nassar & Rajiv Kanakala Movies Together List — 8 Films

The shape of the work

The 1990s belonged to Rakshana; the 2010s to Dookudu. Nassar acted in every film; Rajiv Kanakala acted in all of them.

Partnership facts

• Nassar and Rajiv Kanakala first shared screen space in 1993's 'Rakshana', but they didn't have a single scene together. Their first actual dialogue exchange happened a decade later in 'Naaga' (2003).
• In 'Dookudu' (2011), Nassar played the strict father to Mahesh Babu, while Rajiv played the comic sidekick. Their contrasting energies — Nassar's deadpan authority vs Rajiv's frantic comedy — made the family scenes click without either actor overpowering the other.
• Their 2019 film '118' was a rare Telugu investigative thriller where both actors played cops — and it became a sleeper hit. This success directly led to more small-budget crime thrillers in Telugu that year, including 'Mallesham' and 'Brochevarevarura'.
• Rajiv Kanakala has said in interviews that Nassar was the one who encouraged him to take up character roles after his lead hero phase faded. They'd often share a cup of tea between shots on 'Maharshi' (2019) sets, discussing old Tamil films.
• "Nassar sir doesn't need to act. He just stands there and the scene works. I had to work twice as hard to match his stillness." — Rajiv Kanakala, in a 2019 interview about working on '118'.