There’s a version of Telugu cinema from the 2010s that a lot of people quietly miss. Not the big mythological blockbusters or the mass action films, but the smaller, warmer stories, the ones where a boy meets a girl, things get messy, and somehow it all works out at the end. For most of that era, that version of Telugu cinema had one face more than any other: Nani.Nani turns 42 on Tuesday. It’s a good enough reason to look back at what he built, and what he’s quietly walked away from.Ghanta Naveen Babu didn’t walk into the film industry through the usual doors. He wasn’t a star son, didn’t have connections, and his early years were spent doing odd jobs on film sets, working as a clap boy and assistant director. He even spent a year as a radio jockey hosting a show called “Non-Stop Nani” before director Mohana Krishna Indraganti spotted him in a commercial and offered him a role.That film was Ashta Chamma (2008), a Telugu adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Light, witty, romantic, it worked. Not a massive hit, but enough to open doors. Nani in Ashta Chamma (2008).The next few years were uneven. Ride, Snehituda, Bheemili Kabaddi Jattu, he was finding his footing, slowly building a following. Then came Ala Modalaindi in 2011, directed by B.V. Nandini Reddy, and something clicked. Audiences responded to it in a way that made it clear Nani had found his lane. The same year, Pilla Zamindar came out. Then in 2012, two very different films arrived back to back. Eega, directed by SS Rajamouli, was unlike anything Telugu cinema had seen, Nani played a man who gets murdered and comes back as a housefly to take revenge on his killer. It was bizarre, inventive, and it worked in a way nobody expected. The same year, Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu (2012), directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon, showed a different side of him. The film won him the Nandi Award for Best Actor.Through the mid-2010s, Nani pretty much owned the rom-com space in Tollywood. Bhale Bhale Magadivoy (2015), where he played an absent-minded, forgetful botanist, was his first real blockbuster and earned him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Then came Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gaadha (2016), Gentleman (2016), Majnu (2016), Nenu Local (2017), Ninnu Kori (2017), Middle Class Abbayi (2017), almost one a year, and most of them worked.Also Read: A blank cheque and a secret diamond ring: Sudha Chandran reveals the ‘pure’ heart of Mayuri producer Ramoji RaoStory continues below this adNani’s nickname, “Natural Star,” wasn’t just marketing. It described what made him work in those films. He wasn’t trying to be larger than life. He played relatable, slightly flawed, charming guys, not superheroes, not mass heroes. Just people you could believe in. The guy next door who happened to be on screen.What often gets overlooked in conversations about Nani is how much he’s built on the other side of the camera. He launched his production house Wall Poster Cinema in 2018. HIT: The First Case (2020) with Vishwak Sen was one of the sleeper hits of that year, and it spawned a franchise, HIT: The Second Case (2022) with Adivi Sesh followed, and Nani himself stepped in front of the camera for HIT: The Third Case (2025). The banner also produced Awe! (2018), which won two National Awards. But around 2019, things started changing.After Gang Leader (2019), a fun, comedy-driven film where he played a writer who ends up leading a group of women seeking revenge, Jersey was the first real sign. He played a 36-year-old failed cricketer trying to make a comeback for his son. The film was quiet, emotionally heavy, nothing like what he’d been doing. It didn’t set the box office on fire, but the response from critics and audiences who saw it was something else. Nani as Arjun in Jersey (2019), a role widely considered to be one of the finest performances of his career.Then in 2020, he played a serial killer in V. In 2021, Shyam Singha Roy put him in a period drama setting. In 2023, the raw and intense Dasara, set in coal mines, won him his first Filmfare Best Actor award. Saripodhaa Sanivaaram in 2024 saw him as a vigilante. HIT: The Third Case in 2025 cast him as an IPS officer in a crime thriller.Story continues below this adSomewhere in between all that, he did do Ante Sundaraniki (2022), a warm romantic comedy opposite Nazriya Nazim that worked well, and Hi Nanna (2023), where he played a single father and fashion photographer opposite Mrunal Thakur. Hi Nanna leaned more into emotional drama than his earlier rom-coms, but it still had romance at its center, and it was a commercial success.That, as things stand, is where it ended. After Hi Nanna, there’s been no romance, no light comedy, nothing in that space. Just thrillers and action and intense character work. That leaves Tollywood with a gap that doesn’t get talked about enough.The bigger names, Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Ram Charan, Jr NTR, moved into larger-than-life action films years ago. None of them are doing intimate love stories anymore. Nani was, for a long time, the reliable alternative. The person doing films for audiences who didn’t want a three-hour action spectacle every time.Now he’s moved on too. And nobody has stepped in. There’s no one currently doing what Nani was doing between 2011 and 2023, that steady stream of well-made romantic films that connected with regular audiences. Occasional attempts exist here and there, but no one owns that space the way Nani did.