Tollywood star Nani has addressed Salman Khan’s recent remarks about Hindi movies struggling to find acceptance in South India. While promoting his upcoming film ‘Hit: The Third Case’ alongside actress Srinidhi Shetty, Nani refuted Salman’s claim, emphasising that the South has embraced Hindi films for generations.
In an interview with DNA India, Nani reacted to the statement made by Salman during the promotion of his film ‘Sikandar’. The ‘Tiger 3’ actor stated that people in the South may call him ‘bhai bhai’ with a lot of love when they see him in public, but they never show up in theatres to watch his movies. He also added that Hindi-speaking people accept South movies and make them a success, while South Indians never try to accept Hindi movies.

Nani stated that Hindi cinema has long been cherished in South India, far before the recent popularity of South films across the country. He emphasised that Bollywood has enjoyed love and admiration in the South for decades, with people having fond childhood memories of iconic Hindi films and stars like Amitabh Bachchan. Films like ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ and ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ were massive successes in the southern states. While South Indian cinema is currently gaining nationwide attention, Nani highlighted that Hindi films have always been embraced across India.
He later reacted to Salman’s observation, saying, “Nahi-nahi, waha nahi chale? Bina chale kaise superstar ban gaye? 100% chalti hai, and we all love him. We all watched so many films of Salman. Movies like Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! have cultural importance there. Didi Tera Deewana and other songs, we used to play at our weddings.”

Srinidhi Shetty also shared that Hindi movies were familiar to everyone and that they all used to watch them.
Nani concluded by suggesting that Salman Khan’s words might have been misunderstood.
‘Hit 3’ is scheduled to hit theatres across India on May 1. It is the third installment in the popular ‘HIT’ franchise, with Nani playing the lead role of SP Arjun Sarkaar, a tough and relentless officer from the HIT squad in Visakhapatnam. Arjun investigates a high-priority case in Jammu and Kashmir involving a series of brutal serial killings. The cast includes Srinidhi Shetty as Mrudula, Surya Srinivas as ASP Ravi, Adil Pala as SI Zubair Ahmed Khan, Rao Ramesh as DGP Nageswara Rao, Brahmaji, and Maganti Srinath among others.
Currently Nani is promoting ‘HIT 3’ alongside his female lead Srinidhi Shetty. Recently the co-stars visited the sacred Tirumala Balaji temple in Tirupati to seek blessings ahead of their film release where Nani seemingly got irritated due to the fans constantly capturing them.
On the other hand, Salman Khan was last seen in ‘Sikandar’ directed by A.R. Murugadoss. The film also starred Rashmika Mandanna, Sathyaraj, Kajal Aggarwal, Sharman Joshi, and others. Meanwhile, Nani’s previous outing was ‘Saripodhaa Sanivaaram’ which received decent reviews from the audiences and turned out to be a hit. One Twitter review for the movie read, “#SaripodhaaSanivaaram – A regular commercial-format movie with value added SANIVARAM fight concept Main lead performance 👌 High octane sequences 🔥 Excellent cinematography & Editing ❤️‍🔥 Finally KUTHHA RAMP BACKGROUND score 🔊🥵💥 Over all 3.5/5 Njy Fans ,Neutral audience.”