Rajnikant's entry may have been humble, in an insignificant role but the success he achieved in a very short span was unimaginable. A popular Tamil magazine brought out a special supplement at a time when his still on the make, and, he presto, the magazine's sales doubled with that issue alone.
Such mass adulation, the thunderous rain of applause when Rajni delivered his lines, all put together, made him a phenomenon. It was at this point that Rajni realised the onus had been thrust on him. The fate of producers hinged on him alone. This sudden exposure to the glare of the media and the popularity and money he never imagined would be his, created a lot of stress in his mind. At that crucial time in his career when his market price had just begun to zoom, he decided to opt out of films completely, sending shock waves to his fans. Balachander, Kamalhaasan and his other well-wishers somehow, coaxed him into staying on.
The second phase of his life started with K Balaji's Billa, a superhit disproving the canard spread by detractors that Rajnikant was finished. He was accepted as a full-fledged hero. Billa was followed by a row of hits like Pokkiri Raja, Thanikkattu Raja, Naan Mahaan Alla and the all-important Moondru Mugham, in which Rajni essayed a triple role. Even two decades after its release, the last continues to be a box-office draw and Rajni's fans can never tire of the thalaivar's verbal clash with villain Senthamarai.
K Balachander's first home production, Nettrikkam proved to be yet another milestone in Rajni's career.
An analysis of Rajni's career graph shows a remarkable absence of fits and starts. It has been a slow and steady rise to the very top. As Rajni sings in a hit song from Badshah, a man's life may be divided into eight divisions. Rajni's own career may be divided into three segments. The first as a villain, the second as a hero with negative traits, and the third and present phase, as the reigning czar of Tamil filmdom. With Rajni's films fetching crores and his market price skyrocketing, the costs of production of his films became unmanageable. And Rajni has since had to stick to a one film per year formula, sometimes, he could do a film once in two years.
The new trend where his films' collections exceed normal regional film expectations started off with Badshah, followed by Annamalai, Arunachalam, Ejaman, Muthu and Padayappa. It's now an accepted fact that only a Rajnikant film can break records set by his own films.
As an actor, Rajnikant's greatest asset, apart from his style is his sense of humour and comic timing. Like Amitabh Bachchan is popular for his drunken soliloquies, Rajnikant is famous for his comic encounters with snakes, repeated ump I In the early n the early teen times.