Prabhu's father, actor Sivaji Ganesan, initially expressed his reluctance to allow Prabhu to pursue an acting career, but thanks to his work in the industry, he began to receive offers from filmmakers.
He then made his acting debut in Sangili (C.) of C. V. Rajendran (1982), a remake of the Hindi film Kalicharan, where he played a supporting role. At the time of Sangili's release, Prabhu was working on six films, including Charuhasan's Pudhiya Sangamam and Kozhi Koovuthu, Gangai Amaren's romantic film, which became his first commercial success. After appearing in about thirty films, including nineteen with his father including Santhippu, Mirudhanga Chakravarthy and Neethibathi, Prabhu's career chart dropped and he began to reconsider the type of films he had signed.
Among the first films he has signed after the break are Aruvadai Naal (1986) by G. M. Kumar and Paalaivana Rojakkal from Manivannan, alongside Sathyaraj, both successful. Subsequently, the actor will experience a series of commercial successes in 1988, including S. Muthuraman's Guru Sishyan with Rajinikanth, Mani Ratnam's Agni Nakshatram with Karthik and P. Vasu's family tragedy In Thangachi Padichava.
The success of this latest film led to more successful collaborations in the same genre between Prabhu and Vasu with Chinna Thambi (1991) and Senthamizh Pattu (1992) also receiving a similar reception, the actor winning the award for best actor awarded by state of Tamil Nadu. He then worked in Rajakumaran, his hundredth film of RV Udayakumar, before presenting well-received roles in the romantic film of K. Balachander, Duet (1994) and in the Priyadarshan film, Malayalam, Kaalapani (1996) alongside Mohanlal.
In the late 1990s, Prabhu went through another sterile episode, when several films after the success of Panchalankurichi failed, which caused another change of image compared to the beneficial roles of his village.
Moving away from action films, Prabhu selected scenarios that would appeal to families in the early 2000s and collaborated with filmmakers including Rama Narayanan and T. P. Gajendran, working on a series of minimum guaranteed return movies. |
