Rana Daggubati is an Indian film actor, producer, visual effects co-ordinator, and photographer who appears in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi movies. He made his acting debut with the Telugu movie Leader and went on to star in several south Indian and Hindi movies. The actor is the recipient of the State Nandi Award for Best Special Effects for the movie Sainikudu.

Early Life
Rana was born into a family that is deeply connected to the South Indian cinema. His father, Daggubati Suresh Babu is a famous Telugu movie producer and his paternal grandfather, D. Ramanaidu, was also a noted film producer, conferred with the Padma Bhushan, India`s third highest civilian award, for his contribution to Indian cinema. Rana`s cousin Naga Chaitanya and paternal uncle Venkatesh and Nagarjuna are also actors who appear in Telugu films. Before venturing into movies, Rana was a successful digital post-production entrepreneur, running his own company.

Movie Career
Before making his debut as an actor, Rana entered the film industry as a producer with the movie Bommalata in 2004. The movie won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu at the 53rd National Film Awards. He was next associated with the movie Sainikudu (2006) as a Visual effects coordinator, and won the Nandi Award for Best Special Effects.

It was in the year 2010 that Rana made his acting debut with the smash hit Telugu movie Leader, portraying the role of a young CEO of a US-based company. He was widely appreciated for his performance in the movie with The Times of India stating: Another lineage star Rana Daggubati takes his first bow at the Box Office with an inspiring political saga, he puts in a surprisingly mature performance (for a debutant) and shines in his role of a savvy young CEO of an US-based company who turns a conniving politician with effortless ease. Following his success in the debut movie, Rana then made his Bollywood debut with the movie Dum Maaro Dum directed in by Rohan Sippy in 2011. He once again impressed the audience and critics alike with his dashing performance. The Times of India dubbed it as a "dashing debut".

In his third movie, the Telugu film titled Nenu Naa Rakhshasi (2011), Rana essayed the character of a professional killer. However, unlike his previous movies, the movie proved to be a box office disaster. The actor`s next two releases received mixed response commercial and critical response. The first being Naa Ishtum (2012), a Telugu movie directed by Prakash Toleti, and the second being a Hindi movie, Department, directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Rana`s next Telugu movie, Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum, directed by Krish, proved to be box office hit and he also went on to make his Tamil film debut with Arrambam (2013).

The year 2013 turned out to be one of the most important years of Rana`s acting career. He signed two movies that year, which later went on to become landmarks in Telugu Cinema viz. Baahubali: The Beginning and Rudramadevi; both these movies released in 2015.

Baahubali: The Beginning, an epic historical movie directed by S.S. Rajamouli features Prabhas, Tamannaah Bhatia, and Anushka Shetty in lead roles. The movie went on to become the highest grossing Indian film within India and the highest grossing Telugu film of all time. Rana played the role of the antagonist Bhallala Deva, and was praised for his performance with critic Archita Kashyap stating: Be it the war sequences, or sword fighting; or a visual spectacle, or pure entertainment it is worth a watch. Kudos to the dedication of S S Rajamouli and his leading men, Prabhas & Rana, for spending years putting this film together. Actually, in its imagination & Indianness, Baahubali might just be a whole new start." Three months after Baahubali was released, Rana`s next movie Rudhramadevi, a 3-D historical movie based on life of the ruler Rudrama Devi (died 1295), directed by Gunasekhar, hit the theaters. The movie opened to positive reviews and grossed INR 32 crores at the box office. Rudhramadevi was also shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 2016, Rana appeared alongside Arya, Sri Divya, Bobby Simha and Parvathy in the movie Bangalore Naatkal, which was a remake of the Malayalam blockbuster Bangalore Days (2014). The film received mixed reviews upon its release and failed to make an impact at the box office. In 2017, the actor appeared in the bilingual war film The Ghazi Attack and reprised his role as Bhallaladeva in the epic action movie Baahubali: The Conclusion. While the former went on to win the National Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu, Baahubali: The Conclusion became a milestone in the history of Indian cinema; both in terms of its scale and box office success. Rana also received rave reviews for his performances in both these films.

The actor had no major releases in 2018, though he did appear in a cameo role in the Bollywood comedy Welcome to New York and narrated the bilingual comedy Rajaratha. The Tollywood biographical drama NTR (2019), the bilingual period film Madai Thiranthu (2019) and the Bollywood comedy Housefull 4 (2019) are among Rana`s major projects. His 2021 release includes Haathi Mere Saathi, directed by Prabhu Solomon. The drama film is titled Kaadan and Aranya in Tamil and Telugu versions respectively.