Director S S Rajamouli had his eyes set on an Oscar for RRR from the word go. From the casting to the promotions, everything was meticulously planned. How he got Ram Charan Tej and Jr NTR, the reigning stars of Telugu cinema, to team up is quite a story.

He invited them home separately, without letting on that the other would be there. “I have a project in mind and I want to tell you that I would like to cast both of you in it. Let me know if you agree,” he told them. In the Telugu industry, unlike Bollywood, stars like to act only in solo hero films. So, the casting was Rajamouli’s ‘coup’.

Interestingly, ‘RRR’ was just a working title where the three ‘Rs’ stood for Rajamouli, Ram Charan Tej and Rama Rao. But the title stuck and was later expanded as ‘Roudram Ranam Rudhiram’ in Telugu and ‘Rise Roar Revolt’ in English.

It was the film’s circuit of international film festivals that sparked the Oscar buzz. Starting December 2022, RRR travelled to more than 35 film festivals and won awards in several of them. At the Hollywood Critics Association awards, RRR won five awards, including Best Original Song and Best International Film.

It won the Critics Choice Movie awards for Best Song and Best Foreign Language Film. The Golden Globes, where Naatu Naatu bagged Best Original Song, was the biggest win and, thereby, a huge morale booster.