I have finally proven my potential as an actor: Prabhu Mundkur

The year 2024 was a packed one for actor Prabhu Mundkur, with two theatrical releases — Murphy and Maryade Prashne — in one month. The latter strongly established Prabhu as the antagonist. He then started 2025 with Choo Mantar, a horror-comedy. “Back-to-back releases have given me visibility and helped me seep into audiences’ muscle memory. My game, as an actor, has officially begun now,” Prabhu tells us.
‘I’m now mindful about choosing roles’
For six or seven years, I signed on every role that came my way. But, after Ranchi, I took a pause and made it a point to only choose roles that I wanted to do. This is when I mindfully chose movies like Murphy, Maryade Prashne and Choo Mantar. Now, I can finally see that the audience is noticing me and I bring in a certain traction to movies. I truly feel like years of hard work have paid off. Traction is very important for any actor. I feel responsible for maintaining this traction, which is why I take every step in my career responsibly.

‘Content consumption on OTT platforms is incomprehensible’
Murphy was a movie that I’d pinned high hopes on. I spent over three years on it, and it is very close to my heart. When it was released in theatres, about 30,000 people watched it on the big screen. But, over 30 lakh people watched it on OTT over just two weeks. People called to tell me that they missed out on watching such a beautiful movie in theatres, but they’re glad they caught it on OTT. The volume of content consumption on OTT platforms is incomprehensible! Just look at the numbers, it is 100 folds! And I think that is the future. OTT sure demands certain parameters, and we will soon get the hang of it.
‘Kannada Film Industry currently is in reboot mode’
Today, the audience has segregated the way they watch a film- be it on the big screen, or on OTT. There is a clear bifurcation that we, as filmmakers, are yet to get a hang of. As a market, Kannada content isn’t doing that great on OTT. We are yet to begin making Kannada content exclusively for OTT platforms, nor do we have OTT-specific actors, which I believe is a thriving, unexplored territory. But, I feel like our industry is currently in reboot mode and we will figure out how to tackle the bifurcation