States » WestPosted at: Sep 22 2026 6:30PM


Anant Nag dedicates Dadasaheb Phalke honour to Karnataka, colleagues and audiences

Parwinder Sandhu
Kevadia, Sep 22 (UNI) For a generation that grew up watching Malgudi Days, veteran actor Anant Nag has long been more than a familiar face on screen. On Tuesday, that association acquired another landmark chapter when the veteran actor was presented with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024 at the 72nd National Film Awards ceremony at Ekta Nagar, Kevadia, Gujarat.
Accepting the country's highest cinema honour, Nag described the moment as a "great honour" and said he felt "very, very lucky" to have received the recognition after a cinematic journey spanning more than five decades.
"I thank you very much. It is a great honour to be here with you all," Nag said in his acceptance speech, appearing overwhelmed by the scale and grandeur of the ceremony.
The actor, whose career has straddled Kannada and several other Indian film industries, used the occasion to look back at the journey that took him from theatre to becoming one of the most recognisable performers in Indian cinema.
Nag recalled that acting changed the course of his life when he got an opportunity to work in films. Before entering cinema, he spent several years in theatre, which he described as his training ground. He recalled performing in numerous plays over a period of about five years before making the transition to films.
His first major opportunities came in Kannada cinema, a connection he repeatedly acknowledged during his speech. While he later worked extensively in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi cinema, Nag said Karnataka remained central to his artistic journey.
"I went there as an ambassador for Karnataka," he said while recalling his work in other languages, adding that he would not have undertaken those acting assignments without the opportunities and support he received from people in the industry.
"Karnataka films gave me the greatest of opportunities," Nag said.
His career began with the Kannada film Sankalp, while Shyam Benegal's Ankur marked his Hindi film debut. Over the years, he went on to appear in more than 300 films across six Indian languages, taking on a wide range of characters. His body of work includes films associated with the parallel cinema movement as well as mainstream cinema and television.
For television audiences, Nag became particularly familiar through Malgudi Days, adding another enduring dimension to a career that had already established him as a prominent Kannada actor.
He has won five Filmfare Awards and five Karnataka State Best Actor Awards, besides the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award, Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award, and Karnataka State Lifetime Achievement Award. He was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2025.
In his speech, Nag also made it clear that he viewed the honour not merely as an individual achievement but as recognition of the many people who had accompanied him through his long career.
He thanked his employees and associates, assistant directors and associate directors, filmmakers, and other colleagues who had worked with him over the years. He also expressed gratitude to the millions of viewers who had accepted the characters he portrayed and opened their hearts to his work.
Instituted in 1969, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award recognises outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian cinema. It is named after Dadasaheb Phalke, regarded as the father of Indian cinema.
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