Renowned author Girish Karnad who forrayed into sandalwood in 1970 as an actor with Samskara, has also directed few epic movies in Sandalwood. With his movies, he has introduced the renowned actors to Sandalwood who made big names in their career and left the precious foot-prints. They are none other than Sahasa Simha Dr Vishnuvardhan and Karate King Shankar Nag.
Karnad made his directorial debut with Vamshavruksha in 1971. He jointly directed and penned the screenplay along with BV Karanth. This also marked the on-screen debut of Dr Vishnuvardhan, who played a key role in the movie, which was based on the novel written by SL Byrappa.
Later in 1978, Karnad directed Ondanondhu Kaaladalli, a war thriller where Karate King Shankar Nag made his acting debut as a hero. For the cinematography, screenplay, dialogues, Ondanondu Kaaladalli was considered as one of the finest films ever made in those days. It has some fascinating stunt scenes, involving desi war style Kalaripayattu. With wide tracking photography, great shots of Malenadu forest and excellent detailing, Ondanondu Kaladalli was considered as an epic masterpiece in itself. Through the same film, Kavitha Krishnamurthy started her singing career as a playback singer.
In 1977, the bilingual film Tabaliyu Neenade Magane, again jointly directed with BV Karanth marked the Kannada debut of Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri which was also based on Byrappa's novel.
Nine years later, the young champ Shankar Nag who was introduced to films by Karnad got to play a key role in TV series Malgudi Days, where Karnad played the role of Swamy's father in Swamy and friends chapter. The series was directed by Shankar Nag, which was based on the novel with the same name penned by RK Narayan.
As an actor, Girish Karnad was seen in few memorable roles like Praneshacharya in Samskara, directed by Pattabirama Reddy based on the novel written by another Jnanapeeta laureate UR Ananth Murthy. Girish has also shared screen space with some of the film biggies like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Shahrukh Khan, Chiranjeevi, Salman Khan, Shivaraj Kumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Sudeep Prabhudeva and few others.