In the 10th year since his cinema debut, a Kannada actor-director delivered a banger of a movie that became a national sensation. Besides becoming the second-highest-grossing Kannada film of all time, the action thriller also put the spotlight back on the industry, demonstrating its ability to produce aesthetically and technically superior films just as finely as high-octane action blockbusters like KGF. Interestingly, the movie featured the director himself in the lead role, and both his craft and performance received widespread acclaim, eventually earning him the National Film Award for Best Actor. And we are talking about none other than the multi-hyphenated Rishab Shetty and his film, Kantara (2022). Before making his debut with director Aravind Kaushik’s Tuglak (2012), featuring Rakshit Shetty in the lead role, Rishab Shetty (née Prashanth Shetty) completed a diploma in filmmaking, a path that unravelled before him as he was running a small business to survive.