Kichcha Sudeep and Salman Khan at the Vikrant Rona press meet.
Salman Khan is family, actor Kichcha Sudeep said in an interview with NDTV on his new film Vikrant Rona, the Hindi version of which is distributed by Salman's SKF banner. The Bollywood star has been present at promotions as well, appearing at a press meet ahead of the launch of the film where he danced with Sudeep and co-star Jacqueline Fernandez and took questions from the media. Speaking to NDTV, Sudeep said, "He's more of family to me. His support will always be there. There's nothing that I can say other than being thankful and showing my love to him always."
"SKF coming was a mammoth strength, they have been very kind to us," Sudeep added about Salman Khan's production house. The actors - both massive box office draws in the Kannada and Hindi languages respectively - have co-starred in 2019's Dabangg 3, in which Salman reprised his role as maverick cop Chulbul Pandey and Sudeep played the antagonist Balwant Singh. They also host the Hindi and Kannada versions of reality show Bigg Boss. "It all matches up," Kichcha Sudeep told NDTV.
Vikrant Rona co-stars Jacqueline Fernandez, who has appeared with Salman Khan in films like Kick. The actress plays a prominent role in Vikrant Rona with a dance sequence in the hit song Ra Ra Rakamma. Asked how much difference Jacqueline's casting had made, Sudeep said, "Lots. We wanted her to make a difference on screen, not a business level so that was not even a perspective at all for us to even have a chat about it."
Sudeep was effusive in his praise: "On screen she is Jacqueline, what can I even say about whether she made a difference? We wanted the difference, that's why we brought her, it's very simple. She's a very fine actress, very good-looking. She has a huge fan following and she's fantastic in dancing."
Vikrant Rona, in which Kichcha Sudeep plays the titular character, a police officer, is an action thriller directed by Anup Bhandari. It opened last Friday to good numbers and is now in the Rs 100 crore club with its worldwide collections.