Samantha Akkineni & Vennela Kishore Movies Together List — 7 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 71% of everything they made together. The 2010s belonged to Dookudu; the 2020s to Pushpa (The Rise Part-01). Samantha Akkineni acted in every film; Vennela Kishore acted in all of them. Strictly Telugu cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Samantha personally recommended Vennela Kishore for the role of 'Gali' in Dookudu (2011). She had worked with him earlier in a small role and told director Srinu Vaitla, 'He’s the funniest guy I know — just let him loose.' That film became their first together and a blockbuster.
• In S/O Satyamurthy (2015), Vennela Kishore’s character was written as a nervous sidekick. But on set, Samantha kept breaking his rhythm by feeding him wrong lines during rehearsals. He had to improvise every take, which made his stammering comic timing sharper. The director kept those takes.
• Their pairing in Pushpa (2021) — where Samantha played the item dancer and Vennela Kishore played the comedic sidekick — directly inspired the trend of pairing a top heroine with a comic actor for a single song in Telugu films. At least three 2022 releases copied that formula.
• On the sets of Manmadhudu 2 (2019), Samantha and Vennela Kishore had a running bet: whoever flubbed a line first had to buy the entire crew ice cream. Samantha lost 11 times in one week. Kishore still jokes that she funded half the unit’s sugar intake.
• Vennela Kishore once said in an interview: 'Samantha is the only co-star who can make me laugh so hard I forget my next dialogue. She’s my worst enemy on set — and my best friend.'