Jagapathi Babu & Rao Ramesh Movies Together List — 6 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 83% of everything they made together. The 2010s belonged to Om Namo Venkatesaya; the 2020s to Pushpa (The Rise Part-01). Jagapathi Babu acted in every film; Rao Ramesh acted in all of them. Strictly Telugu cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• In Aravindha Sametha (2018), director Trivikram Srinivas wrote the role of the villain specifically for Rao Ramesh. But he needed a strong, silent antagonist to counter Jr NTR. He brought in Jagapathi Babu as the rival faction leader. The two never shared a single dialogue in the film — their conflict was purely visual, built through stares and body language.
• In Maharshi (2019), Jagapathi Babu played the corporate villain while Rao Ramesh played a corrupt politician. They only shared one scene together — a tense boardroom confrontation. Jagapathi Babu later said in an interview that Rao Ramesh's slow, deliberate delivery forced him to drop his usual fast-paced style, making the scene feel more threatening.
• Their pairing in Pushpa (2021) as father and son — Jagapathi Babu as the ruthless Mohan and Rao Ramesh as the meek, alcoholic father — directly inspired the casting of a similar father-son dynamic in the 2023 film 'Virupaksha'. The director said he wanted the same 'unspoken tension' between the two actors.
• Despite playing rivals in three films, Jagapathi Babu and Rao Ramesh are close friends off-screen. During the shoot of Yatra (2019), where they played political allies, they would share the same makeup van and discuss their children's education. Rao Ramesh once joked that Jagapathi Babu 'talks more about his son's cricket matches than about his own scenes.'
• Rao Ramesh said about Jagapathi Babu in a 2021 interview: 'He is the only co-star who can make me laugh between takes and then, in the next second, make me feel like I'm actually fighting him. That's rare.'