Is this lazy? It’s not lazy. I’m about to finish all of Bahubali 2 scene by scene, why not celebrate with an entire Prabhas themed TGIF post.
Shall we just start with an orgy of in character shots? Why not!
Love the little scrape on his nose. He’s a tough guy who’s been in a fight, but it only touched his nose, so he still looks pretty.
Flush from the heat of battle, already thinking about his next steps!
Oh yeah, I know I’m pretty!
Oh yeah, I know I’m powerful!
Oh yeah, I’m ANGRY!
But I also love my mother
And grand finale of Bahubali-Prabhas!
Now, let’s look at Prabhas NOT as Bahubali! Here he is from Billa (I think), looking very broadshouldered and bad boy.
Here he is looking very good boy and, frankly, also kind of boring.
Here he is in a hideous costume
Here he is in another hideous costume (pretty sure my aunt owns this same shirt. and sunglasses)
Okay, a slightly better outfit. Although, the shoes?
Oh yeah, here’s what he needs to wear! Tailored shirt, tailored pants, nothing else!
Kangana Ranaut, also not the best accessory. Really, Prabhas, just stick to the shirt and pants!
Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!
With sunglasses
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With sunglasses and a coat
With sunglasses and a vest
With a tie? I don’t know, it may not work
However, the motorcycle is a nice addition
And finally, because I know it’s what you like, in a tailored shirt and pants, serving Anushka (really, if you have a Bahubali hangover from their romance, you should watch Mirchi!)
dontcallitbollywood 
“Now, let’s look at Prabhas NOT as Bahubali! Here he is from Billa (I think), looking very broadshouldered and bad boy.”
This is a still from Rebel.
Prabhas looks the best in Mirchi ❤
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Mirchi 2nd half (1st chronologically). I am not a fan of the hoodies and t-shirt look. But responsible-village-leader-in-modern-tailored-shirts is a very very good look. Also, KATTAPPA!
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True that 🙂
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You really needed to put up some shirtless shots from Billa (only redeeming feature of that film, IMO). Also he looked quite fetching in Varsham.
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I know this is insanity, but I think I might actually prefer Prabhas in a tailored shirt with the top two buttons undone to Prabhas with no shirt at all.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 7:09 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think Mirchi and Bahubali are the only two films in which Prabhas had decent costumes. In other films his costumes are either WTH or very unimaginative.
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He seriously needs to get a stylist. Or if he has one, he needs to be more emphatic about promoting his/her opinions. Leaving his costumes up to whatever the director decides is not working!
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 8:52 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The bizarre thing is that he *does* have a stylist, one of his close friends, and who has been with him for several films. Prabhas thinks he’s great. (shrug) So I don’t think we’re going to see any major changes any time soon. I’m curious what his styling will be like in Saaho.
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Goodness me. Is this what Saaho is going to get too if it is the same stylist? But isn’t Sujeeth known for makeovers? Apparently the actor in his first film (Sharawanand?)got a complete makeover and that was one of the reasons Prabhas approached him for a movie.
Sidenote – I read that Prabhas being loyal and emotional about his home-territory has decided to go with a Telugu actress and not a Bollywood one for Saaho. I found that sweet. ☺️ But then he can do nothing but drink a glass of water and I’d find that sweet, too. 🤔
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Please say it’s Anushka! Please say it’s Anushka!
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 12:23 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Fingers crossed!
Sidenote 2 – I was crushed when my friend pointed out that his muscles in the final battle (Rana vs Prabhas2) scene were probably CGIed. 🙁 Well enhanced rather, to be at par with Rana’s. Not because I am disappointed that he doesn’t have all those muscles but because I have this image of him being a hard-working, honest fellow and probably expected everything to be his-made as far Baahubali is concerned. Reality check.
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I choose not to believe this. Also, he loves his mother and children and is shy with women and generally the perfect humble hardworking handsome-and-doesn’t-know-it kind of guy.
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Thank you. After a day of brooding, I came to a similar conclusion. I have been sleeping better.
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It has become a fashion to call every well sculpted actor’s muscles to be CGI’ed. I don’t believe this for a minute, simply because the shots of him as Shivudu in Part 2 were completely consistent with similar shots in Part 1. Too much evidence is there of the amount of training all the actors underwent, for this to be even a plausible hypothesis.
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Oh, Mirchi! I actually watched it between Baahubali 1 and 2 and was tickled at how many people show up in both, everyone except Rana and Ramya (even the guy who harasses Richa in the beginning is the guy who plays Sethupathy, still being a creep around women!). That said, I’m….still not entirely sure what Prabhas’ plan to end the feud actually was, any more than I understand why he flirts so much with Richa when he’s sorta-engaged-and-apparently-still-in-contact-with Anushka, but whatever! (And Prabhas and Anushka luck out in that they have chemistry reminscent of SRK-Kajol, where they can sell an epic romance to me with two scenes and two songs to the point I don’t go “hey, wait a minute, that had next to no buildup” until much later- I hear they arefriends off screen, like SRK and Kajol, which I guess helps?)
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This is slightly off topic, but Jai’s plan was to go inside the “enemy’s” family to try to change their mindset, away from violence and feuding and towards cooperation. He managed to succeed with everyone except the evil uncle, whom he finally won over in the final confrontation by adopting his father’s strategy, i.e., not to retaliate even when under attack.
Also, he never “flirted” with Manasa, merely became friends with her, which she interpreted to be romantic interest. And he pursued friendship with her once he knew which village she came from (which happened in the opening scene), as a way to get into the “other side.”
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Yes! To the chemistry. I somehow knew some of the plot of Mirchi in advance, so I knew that the first-half romance wasn’t the “real” romance. And I was watching it thinking “how can this not be the real romance? This is so cute and they are so good together!” And then Anushka showed up, and the chemistry was on a whole other level.
On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 8:40 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Also Anushka’s cousin in B2 is Richa’s cousin in this. One of my favourite parts is when Prabhas turns this violent aggressive Subbaraju to an adorable love sick puppy. Prabhas seems to have this good influence over Subbaraju, always brings out the best in him.
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I read this review of Billa on another board where the author goes, “He wears a lot of clothes. And satin. In the heat of summer. No wonder he’s always angry. All that chafing.” I had a good, long laugh.
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Excellent point. I always think something similar whenever Indian villains wear leather (which is A LOT!). Who wears leather in India? So sticky! and hot!
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 12:17 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think its the whole “I am so evil I can even tolerate the weather” attitude.” The villains in the older movies used to be dressed in 3 piece suits – complete with pocket kerchiefs and pipes. I didn’t get it – maybe it was to show that they were rich? They live in completely aircoditioned houses and drove airconditioned cars etc.
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I just assumed that Western=Evil
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I don’t think it’s that. It is more ‘dressing like them cos they’re so cool’. It is also what happens when someone from the village who wore only traditional clothes suddenly gets a lot of money. The first thing they do is chage their wardrobe to be more Western.
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Well for the most part Prabhas is very careless about his diet. When he doesn’t work he eats all the junk, and is literally like a thug on the street. He gets into arguments, he laughs and whistles with his friends go on a trip. He is never a show off like all the khans of Bollywood. Out of screen he is shy, private person but fun to be around. He will come to anybody’s home, any function, any food you give him he eats. He is a LOT of fun to be with. He is a graduate in technology. Most of the roles he perform are kind of street thug type which are close to his real life. He once said that the closest character that reflected his real life was Bujjigadu.
He has absolutely no sense of fashion. His costumes in Chatrapati looked weird. In Real life he has no sense of fashion too. Just look at his costume during casual interviews.
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When it comes to sticky and hot nothing beats his hometown. I visited his village and farmhouse which is near the town called Narsapuram. The farm house watchmen was a friend of my friend. He showed pictures of Prabhas running along the huge mango plantation with his friends after a sip of beer. It was nice.
But after say 9 am, I see my skin sticky so much that when I place my one hand on the other it literally sticks like a glue and smells funny.
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When my parents’ visited India in the 1970s, in May, what they always remembered was the day that it was so hot, the dye on my mother’s skirt leaked out and turned her legs blue.
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ROFL…
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In the second pic, you can actually see his veins. WTH !!!
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It’s pretty extreme, but at least he’s not as bad as Hrithik!
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http://m.gulte.com/movienews/58187/Saaho-Prabhas-Prefers-Anushka
For fan girls here, yes Anushka is the strong contender for Saaho. Prabajs going all on all for her.
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I think I may have done something extremely right in a previous life to have stumbled across this blog!!!! OMG!!!! I have been searching all over the interweb for some analysis on the Bahubali franchise and sadly all of them were mostly lazy adjectives thrown together. I’ve just begun to to read this blog and I think I may at some point print it out, including comments, and put it together in a book just so I’m not distracted by the temptation to respond to comments before I’ve read the entire thread. Thank you Thank you Thank you for this blog!!!!
Now more on to the point :
Someone mentioned something about Prabhas’ muscles in the comments. Well, here’s what my bodybuilder/trainer boyfriend of mine and I thought of the guys’ physiques:
Neither of the two leading men used steroids (comparing it to Amir Khan in Dangal and SRK’s dard-e-disco phase. You just cant manage that kind of transformation without serious chem help!) There’s “bulk” on their arms AND they have magnificent thighs. Rana looks more chiselled because his screentime was comparatively lesser and even in that the heaviest he needed to look (intro in BB1 and shirtless dual in BB2) was for a comparatively short period of time (actual time of shooting. Rajamouli has confessed that up to 70% of the second film was shot during the filming for the first one). You can see the difference in Rana’s body in the non-shirtless scenes (Vs the shirtless scenes). He looks leaner with sharper cuts. And he bulked down effortlessly too. That doesn’t happen with steroid gains.
Prabhas doesn’t have the spectacular body that Rana does in the film because he’s had to maintain dual body types for a longer period of time. Of all the three avatars he’s had in the film, Shivudu is the sharpest. That’s the character with the best body visually. Shoulder heavy, crisp 17-inch biceps, regular sized chest, very defined. And even with that, the shirtless/sleeveless scenes essentially have a lot of makeup on his body. NOT CGI. The shivling scenes (waterfall in 1 and powder smearing in 2) both have the most obvious kind of contouring makeup on his abs which was probably necessary because for 6/8 pack abs to stick out you kinda have to dehydrate yourself for a few days or use steroids. Not a good idea for where they were shooting and roids are a slippery slope.
For the Amarendra avatar, Prabhas had bigger biceps (18in) and looked bigger than Shivudu. To make him look princely, they had him work on his chest. Those pecs were were magnificent. That’s why the posture is impeccable. The entire body language of the character changes with that. Of course that kind of build doesn’t come with “cuts” so he’s fully clothed for most of Amarendra. Plus, they used a lighter skin tone for Amarendra. The bronzer work for that character was on point for wherever he needed to lose the sleeves.
I loved it that the makers picked and chose the shirtless/sleeveless parts strategically. It wasn’t 6 hours of constant muscle baring (like in 300). They covered the guys up beautifully where the fluctuations in the physiques was going to be very obvious. That being said, i think the PR’s claims about Prabhas’ fat percentages are overstated. He was probably at 5-6% when he shot the intro for BB1 and the Dhivara song but the entire Mahendra arc doesn’t see him maintain that. There are some very chubby cheek moments for Mahendra. Which is understandable since he was gaining for Amarendra. I don’t recall any topless Amarendra moments so he probably didn’t have washboard abs for that character meaning he was at 9-14% during that arc.
During the promotions, Prabhas ballooned. His face was totally round. Rounder than was in parts of Mirchi. He was virtually unrecognisable at certain events. I don’t know if he drinks but he looked hungover with the greasy eyes at so many BB2 promotional events.
And agree with the comment about his style. Dude has none. How very disappointing knowing he could be “Mirchi”!!
(Sorry for the loooong comment. I’m just so excited to have found this blog!!!)
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This is fascinating! It feels kind of odd to be studying his body so much, but as you explain, it was clearly supposed to be studied. Or, I’ll put it another way, his body development was carefully planned by the filmmakers as part of the character. So studying it so closely is just as valid as studying the costume design or the background music.
I am so glad that they went with a more old-fashioned kind of body building for him, where he gained bulk not just muscle. He is supposed to be strong above all else, so I want to see a body that has real size to it, that feels like it could do impossible tasks. Not just look good without a shirt. And, as you point it, even just doing the stunt work movie version of those impossible tasks is pretty hard, and it would be outright dangerous for him to be sliding around on rocks or wrestling with Rana if he was down to nothing in body fat.
Also, I just don’t understand how men can’t dress themselves! At least, men with good bodies. All you need is a tailored shirt and pants that fit! That’s it! Just buy 20 of those outfits and wear them everyday for the rest of your life. Heck, if you don’t want to bother getting measured for the right shirt, go with a plain white t-shirt that fits, and you are done. Women have to worry about dressing right for a million different events and weather and hair styles and so on and so on, but I can’t think of a situation where Prabhas in the Mirchi look wouldn’t have been appropriate for him.
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I really like this discussion! Baahubali is a joy for the eyes, and actors bodies are part of this. I’m so happy we have space where we can discuss it 🙂 I noticed thant Rana’s body in B2 is different than in the first part, and I thought it’s because he is like 50 y/o in it, and can’t look the same he looked at 25.
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Yes! He isn’t the usual “old” look. He is more muscular than before, bigger and stronger. But also less flexible, less graceful, and less kind of clever in his movements. It’s more about power and brute force, than it is intelligence and ability.
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Interestingly enough, Rana’s highest weight during both the films was close to 135! The enormous shoulders from his intro in BB1 and the fight with Mahendra at the end of BB2 are the only two spots on the film where he looks that heavy. He was down to under 110 for most of older guy part. He too slimmed down for most of the film. Those kind of action scenes with that kind of weight are very bad for the knees.
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I’m assuming that is in kilograms? I’m used to seeing things in pounds, and under 110 would be like high school gymnast weight!
It makes sense, for such a long filming period, that he would let his weight and muscle mass go down for the parts where it wasn’t needed.
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Yes, this is in kgs.
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