Nithya Menen & Rana Daggubati Movies Together List — 3 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s belonged to Rudramadevi; the 2020s to Bheemla Nayak. Nithya Menen acted in every film; Rana Daggubati acted in all of them. Strictly Telugu cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Rana Daggubati was the one who pushed for Nithya Menen to play the lead opposite him in Rudramadevi (2015). He had just worked with her in a Tamil film and told director Gunasekhar she'd bring the right royal gravitas. The director agreed after seeing her screen test.
• In Bheemla Nayak (2022), Nithya Menen's character is the calm anchor to Rana's explosive cop. She told a behind-the-scenes interviewer that she deliberately slowed down her dialogue delivery in their confrontation scenes to force Rana to match her rhythm — making his anger feel more frustrated and real.
• During the shoot of NTR Kathanayakudu (2019), Nithya and Rana would rehearse their scenes in Telugu even though both are more comfortable in English and Tamil. Rana later said in a podcast that Nithya would correct his Telugu diction on set, and he'd tease her about her Malayali accent in return.
• "Rana is the only co-star who has seen me cry over bad coffee. We were shooting in Hyderabad and the canteen ran out of filter coffee — I was genuinely upset, and he just sat there laughing and ordered us both chai instead." — Nithya Menen, in a 2022 pre-release interview for Bheemla Nayak.
• Their pairing in Rudramadevi (2015) directly led to Rana being cast as the male lead in the Baahubali franchise. Director S.S. Rajamouli saw their chemistry test footage and told the casting team, 'That's the kind of screen presence I need for Bhallaladeva.'