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Director Gautham Vasudev Menon’s debut Malayalam directorial, Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, starring Mammootty, releases on January 23, and he’s looking forward to the audience’s reaction. Having made his career in Tamil cinema, the director has seen his share of hits and misses and doesn’t mince words when he talks about his work in Kollywood. One of his pet projects, Dhruva Nachathiram, which was initially to star Suriya and now stars Vikram, has been in the making for a while and is now stalled due to various legal and financial issues. (Also read: Gautham Vasudev Menon disowns ENPT with Dhanush; wishes Suriya headlined Joshua)
In recent interviews, he has talked about problems, adding that other people in the Tamil industry have not approached to help him. Has the director disappointed with the Tamil film industry at this point?
“There is no sadness as such. I don’t leave my house thinking that I am going to communicate about this challenge or that. I’m a very sincere person and I don’t spit anything, I just say that I believe. This scenario, I reached out to Dhruva Nachera, and everyone knows it’s in the cans and hasn’t been released yet.
The director added, “The discussions between him and me always revolved around the content; we could have just trusted each other and done the film. But he finally didn’t. When Vikram came on board, I wasn’t the producer – Vikram picked P Madan to produce the film and I came in somewhere along the way to sort out the issues the film had and took over. The perception that I’m the producer and that’s why the film is stuck is wrong – even if Suriya had been in this film now, it would have been stuck.”
As for why insurance of the Tamile actors were not willing to collaborate with him and if he moved to the Malayalam cinema because of this, Gautham says: “I do not take into account movies such as Tamil Cinema, Malayalam Cinema, the Telugu cinema. And All this. These;
Tell him that he looked genuinely upset with Suriya over the Dhruva Nachathiram rejection in one of the video interviews, and he says, “Of course I was! Suriya is somebody I worked with on two films – Kaakha Kaakha and Vaaranam Aayiram. I had the scripts, but we both worked a lot to make the films work, and there was a lot of discussion and collaboration. Vaaranam Aayiram was a coming-of-age story with deep emotion and it was a very poignant sort of film. Suriya picked that film because he trusted me and he trusted himself with the film. So that’s why there was this whole upset feeling that he didn’t trust me with Dhruva Nachathiram. I thought it’ll work really well.”
However, he is quick to point out that Suriya and he did collaborate together in 2021 for the Guitar Kambi Mele Nindru episode of the Navarasa series on Netflix. Will they work together again anytime soon? “Cinema kind of makes it happen, Life makes it happen. So, there’s no, ‘I don’t want to work with him’ or anything like that. And given that there are very few heroes around, I’d also definitely not want to lose an opportunity to work with him,” states Menon.
Upon reaching his actor, Gautham Vasudev’s paintings on the screen are seen through the audience, and many other managers need to indicate him as an actor. So why is he a ‘reluctant actor’ as he says?” I’m a reluctant actor. It’s just because other administrators call me, I’m acting. I get calls every day and 90% of the time, we (myself and my team) say no. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given, and it’s more than just fulfillment and writing, and this also keeps space fires going, so to speak. But this is nothing I look ahead to. When a manufacturer or director, I have a lot of respect for calls, I can’t say no. For example, Santhanam called me and told me that he had made Enn Ponvasantham Neguthane for me and asked if he could do DD returns. I said yes right away. But the peak of the time, I’m a reluctant actor and I can’t wait to be in movies,” he reveals.
Ask him what he has learnt over the 25 years he has been in Tamil cinema and what keeps him going, given that he has seen highs and lows; the director says that ‘life goes on’. “This film, Dominic and the Ladies Purse is a big example of that. Dhruva Nachathiram didn’t release and I was handling so many issues to get the film out, and also in a creative low. There is a general perception that I’m down and out and not to touch a film that Gautham is directing because there may be legal issues that’ll come up later and so on. In the middle of all that, there is Mammootty sir, who I’ve always wanted to do a film with, and he picked the subject, he picked the director, and he said he’d produce the film too. He knew all the issues and still said we trust you, and know you’ll do agood job. That’s the huge learning in this for me – life goes on. The dogged pursuit always works, and there’s nothing that can put you down,” he confesses, admitting that relationships in the film industry are very superficial.