Tollywood has seen legendary heroines in the form of Savitri, Jamuna, Vanisri, Vijayashanti, etc., portray powerful and intimidating characters on screen. They are remembered for their epic performances even today and are an inspiration for everyone in the film industry. It is an undeniable fact that Tollywood has a dearth of actresses hailing from a Telugu speaking background. It is even more undeniable that these Telugu speaking actresses are rarely encouraged by Tollywood filmmakers in any real way.
Tollywood is being ruled by actresses that are from non-Telugu speaking backgrounds, with substantial roles and characters being given to them in any given movie. Agreed, these actresses are putting in their everything and are even actively learning the language and dubbing for themselves. But this doesn’t excuse the fact that home talent is not being encouraged by our filmmakers. We have Telugu speaking actresses like Eesha Rebba, Ritu Varma, Anjali and Sri Divya working in the industry currently. How often is it that we see these actresses be a part of big films in a big way, though? Often, actresses from Telugu background tend to find more success in other languages than in Telugu.
Whatever the reason for Telugu filmmakers to not encourage actresses from a Telugu speaking background may be, audiences are surely saturated with more and more actresses from the North and other states. Cinema going public feels that filmmakers need to change how they portray actresses on screen and encourage more local talent instead of importing actresses from elsewhere.