Bollera Ashok Mandanna

Bollera Ashok Mandanna from Kodagu is a veteran Indian film and theatre actor, a prominent kodava actor who has worked predominantly in Kannada movie industry.

Family

Father

Bollera C Mandanna

Mother

Bollera Jajie Mandanna

Siblings

• Bollera Bharath Mandanna
• Pattamada (Bollera) Sukanya Belliappa

Career

• Mandanna went to the National School of Drama in the early ’70s when Ebrahim Alkazi was its director. “It was an extremely stimulating time to be in the NSD.”
• Raj Babbar, Prasanna and A.S. Vachchani were his classmates. “Rohini Hattangadi, Naseer and Om Puri were seniors. He later went to another drama school, for three years, in London called the Weber Douglas Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.”
• When he was just out of college in Bangalore in the early ’70s, Snehalata Reddy too had just moved into the city from Chennai. She had finished the national award winning movie, Samskara. She and Ashok started Abhinaya in the early ’70s. ” Then he went to the NSD and when he came back he had no one to work with. So he did a one-man show of the life and works of Oscar Wilde.

Achievements

• He acted in the early films of Pattabhirama Reddy like Chandamaruta and Kanneswara Rama, in Shanker Nag’s television serial, Malgudi Days (“He played postman in an episode called Missing Mail. It’s the best role he did on TV or films”) and his film Accident.
• He also landed some small but interesting roles in international productions like David Lean’s A Passage to India, and Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy, and a whole series of them.
• In his Theatre career, he has done some 80 to 100 plays in English. “Well, everything from Shakespeare to Moliere to Pinter, Beckett, Stoppard and all the new writers.” Apart from acting, he has directed a lot.
•  He portrayed the title role in Girish Karnad’s acclaimed play `Tughlaq’Family “ Tughlaq is a terrific opportunity. He was the stage manager for Manohar Singh when he did the Tughlaq at the Purana Qila in Delhi (1975)
• Actor known for A Cure for Wellness (2016), A Passage to India(1984) and Aa Dinagalu (2007).

Film Career

• 1977-Kanneshwara Rama, Chanda Marutha
• 1984- A Passage to India
• 1985- Accident
• 1987-Malgudi Days-TV Series
• 2003-stumble
• 2007-Aa Dinagalu
• 2014- Leap of Faith
• 2015- Mr Airavata
• 2016- Brahman Naman
• 2016- Azhar
• 2016-A cure for wellness