Jagapathi Babu & Vennela Kishore Movies Together List — 9 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 78% of everything they made together. The 2010s belonged to Nannaku Prematho; the 2020s to Pushpa (The Rise Part-01). Jagapathi Babu acted in every film; Vennela Kishore acted in all of them. Strictly Telugu cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Their first film together, Nannaku Prematho (2016), almost didn't happen. Vennela Kishore was cast as the comic relief only after the original actor dropped out last minute. Jagapathi Babu, playing the villain, personally asked director Sukumar to give Kishore a shot — and that scene where Kishore's character gets terrified of Babu's was entirely improvised on set.
• In Saakshyam (2018), Jagapathi Babu deliberately slowed down his dialogue delivery in every scene with Vennela Kishore. He told Kishore off-camera: 'You bring the speed, I'll bring the weight.' The result? Their confrontation scene became the most replayed comedy track of the film, even though Babu was playing a serious villain.
• Their pairing in Pushpa (2021) — Jagapathi Babu as the menacing red sandalwood smuggler and Vennela Kishore as the jittery sidekick — directly inspired the casting of a similar villain-comic duo in the 2023 OTT series 'Sarkaar' (Zee5). The showrunner admitted in an interview that he wanted 'the same Pushpa energy between the heavy and the light.'
• On the sets of Rarandoi Veduka Chudham (2017), Jagapathi Babu and Vennela Kishore shared a hotel room for three weeks because the production ran out of budget. Kishore later said Babu would wake him up at 5 AM every day to practice Telugu diction — Babu was helping Kishore lose his native accent for a more 'urban' comic tone.