Sandalwood heroes don't shy away from being bad

There's always a greater fascination for grey and black rather than pristine white. Even when it comes to films, actors, who want to beat up a hundred baddies, occasionally choose to experiment with shades of grey ' after all, the ladies love bad guys too. The latest hero to play an all-out baddie is Dhananjaya. While his role in

Jessie

earlier this year had some shades of grey, he is going to be the main antagonist in director Suri's

Tagaru

, which sees him pitted against Shivarajkumar.

Sandalwood actors have long been known to experiment with different shades of grey. Vishnuvardhan, Ananth Nag, Shankar Nag and Ramesh Aravind are some of the versatile veterans who have acted in films that don't always see them play goody-two-shoes characters. Lately, with more experimental and different films making a mark again at the box office, the trend only seems to be growing.

Among the current crop of heroes, Upendra was one of the first to play negative roles. Not only has he played villain in

Kannada

, but he has also tried his hand at being the baddie in Telugu and Tamil films too. Sudeep, who is one of the reigning stars in Sandalwood, is known for his versatility in roles with shades of grey outside the state. Be in

Rann

in Hindi,

Eega

in Telugu and

Puli

in Tamil, he loves to try different roles.
Adityaa is another actor who had a successful debut outside Sandalwood, with his first role as an antagonist ' in

Simbu

's Vaalu ' being well-accepted. Rakesh Adiga, who debuted with the musical hit

Jhossh

, has played grey characters in films like

Alemaari

and

Dove

.

Sandalwood has also attracted heroes from other states to try and be villains here. Arun Vijay had a successful debut in Sandalwood with the Puneeth Rajkumar-starrer

Chakravyuha

, in which he played a menacing character. Shaam, who has acted as a hero once in

Thananam Thananam

, was seen as the villain in

AMR Ramesh

's Game, this year.