Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus Thug Life, starring superstar Kamal Haasan, is set to hit theatres on June 5. At a promotional event in Mumbai on Tuesday, the duo opened up about their first impressions of each other. While the filmmaker said Haasan made “a big path for all of us to come in,” the actor shared that their friendship is rooted in a deep mutual love for cinema.
During the event, the host asked Ratnam about his initial impression of Haasan. The filmmaker replied, “I remember when he was planning Sadma in Tamil…I think this is a story that I have heard, so that is what etched in my mind. When he heard the narration (of Sadma) and he came back, he enacted that scene in this compound to tell them what the scene was.”
He added, “So, that’s the kind of person he (Kamal Haasan) was and I was lucky that before I got into it (filmmaking) or just when I was trying to get into it, to be able to interact with him. So I knew, there was somebody who was making a big path for all of us to come in and that’s what he has done.”
On the other hand, Kamal Haasan shared that they started off as friends and then went on to become professional collaborators. “My first impression is that I know him as a friend living in the same area. I didn’t even know that he belonged to a film family. He was a person. I like the way he spoke, we became friends, and we had a group of friends. We were talking only cinema and no gossip. And, that’s where it started,” he revealed.
The actor continued, “When we were doing Nayakan in Colaba and Ramesh Sippy sahab was also shooting in the film city, we also had some shots there. So, we all went to see the shooting of Mr. Ramesh Sippy. We are ultimately, the qualification that brought us here is that like you, we are fans, film buffs. That’s what brought us here. We’ll go to any set to watch anybody work, especially those who we consider as talented, we’d like to watch them work. And that’s what we did.”
Directed by Mani Ratnam, Thug Life is also co-written by Kamal Haasan. The film marks the duo’s reunion after 38 years, as their last movie together was Nayakan in 1987. The gangster drama also stars Silambarasan, Trisha Krishnan, Abhirami, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Ashok Selvan, Sanya Malhotra, Joju George and Nassar.
