37 Facts About Prakash Raj

Prakash Raj was born on Prakash Rai; 26 March 1965 and is an Indian actor, film director, producer, television presenter, and politician.

Prakash Raj made his debut in Tamil cinema through Duet, by K Balachander, and has since been a commercially successful film star in Tamil.

Prakash Raj was the host of Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi during the show's second season.

Prakash Raj was born in Bangalore on 26 March 1965 to a Tuluva father and a Kannada mother.

Prakash Raj's brother is Prasad Raj, who is an actor.

Prakash Raj completed schooling at St Joseph's Indian High School and joined St Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore.

Prakash Raj changed his surname from 'Rai' to 'Raj' upon K Balachander's advice; he is still called Prakash Rai in his home state, Karnataka.

Prakash Raj's father is a Hindu and his mother a Roman Catholic, but he identifies himself as a non-believer.

Prakash Raj acted in back-to-back stage shows for 300 a month in the initial stages of his career, when he joined Kalakshetra, Bengaluru, and he has 2,000 street theatre performances to his credit.

Prakash Raj began his television career with Doordarshan serials such as Bisilu Kudure and Guddada Bhootha.

Prakash Raj later took up supporting roles in Kannada films such as Ramachari, Ranadheera, Nishkarsha and Lockup Death.

Prakash Raj was noticed for his dialogue delivery and histrionics.

Prakash Raj's performance was noticed by Geetha, the lead heroine of the film, who introduced Prakash to her mentor K Balachander, a Tamil director.

Prakash Raj acted under the screen name "Prakash Rai" in Kannada films and was given the name "Prakash Raj" by K Balachander for his debut Tamil film Duet, which saw him playing his first major role.

Prakash Raj was a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show Netru, Indru, Naalai.

Prakash Raj starred in many Malayalam films in 1996: The Prince, Indraprastham and Oru Yathramozhi, the last of which released in 1997.

Prakash Raj acted in Pandippada, with Dilip in 2005, Thekkekara Superfast in 2003, Keerthichakra in 2006, Amal Neerad's Anwar and Shyamaprasad's sensational movie Elecktra in 2010.

Prakash Raj was seen in the movie Achayans along with Jayaram.

Prakash Raj played an important role in Venkat Prabhu's Saroja.

Prakash Raj remade the movie in Kannada as Naanu Nanna Kanasu.

Since Wanted, Prakash Raj has been a regular villain in Hindi language Bollywood movies, including Singham, Dabangg 2, Mumbai Mirror, and Policegiri.

Prakash Raj acted with actor Kamal Haasan in Vasool Raja MBBS, which was a critical and commercial success.

Prakash Raj acted in the Telugu movie Bharat Ane Nenu.

Prakash Raj will be seen in Major, which is directed by Sashi Kiran Tikka.

Prakash Raj took on the mantle of director with Naanu Nanna Kanasu, in Kannada in 2010, for which he was the joint producer.

Prakash Raj was nominated for the Filmfare South "Best Director" category for his first film.

Prakash Raj then directed the Telugu and Tamil bilingual film Dhoni.

Prakash Raj became a film producer beginning with the Tamil film Dhaya, in which he starred with actress Meena.

Prakash Raj later produced films in Tamil such as Naam, Azhagiya Theeye, Kanda Naal Mudhal, Poi, Mozhi, Velli Thirai and Abhiyum Naanum, which won many Tamil Nadu State Awards in 2008, and Inidhu Inidhu in 2010.

Prakash Raj produced a multilingual film Oggarane, Ulavacharu Biryani and Un Samayal Arayil in 2014.

Prakash Raj adopted the villages of Kondareddypalle in Mahabubnagar District, Telangana state and Bandlarahatti in Chitradurga district, Karnataka state.

Prakash Raj contested in the 2019 Indian general election as an independent candidate for the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency.

Prakash Raj lost the election, securing around 28,906 Votes in the election.

Prakash Raj was banned by Telugu film producers six times in the past.

Several Kannada organisations staged protests in front of theatres since they felt that some of the dialogue in a scene in the Hindi film Singham, starring Ajay Devgan and Prakash Raj were derogatory against the Kannadigas.

The controversial scene starts off with Prakash Raj threatening Ajay that he would bring 1,000 people from the Karnataka border to thrash him.

Kannada protesters felt that Prakash Raj, being a Kannadiga should have told the team that it is not right.