Kamal Haasan was his usual cheeky self at a Facebook Live event to promote his upcoming release, Vishwaroopam 2. Dressed in a dark blazer that drew admiration from his fans, Kamal said that he paid for the action sequences in the film with “bone, injuries, pain and applause”, and that the director he wanted to work with the most was himself. Of course!
To a comment from the interviewer that he (being a member of the younger generation) enjoyed Kamal’s older works, Kamal replied: “I am also your age”
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A D V E R T I S E M E N TPosted by Kamal Haasan on Tuesday, July 31, 2018
“Vishwaroopam series was born out of my desire to do something that I wanted to see. We always talk about these movies and wonder why we never get to make it. We dilute it and digress away from the idea. We are always aware and appreciative of fast paced thrillers but we never end up making them. There’s always something or the other that prevents it. We blame it on the market or the distributor and we never end up making it,” he said.
A fan of espionage films and the research that goes into it, Kamal said that this film was his attempt to emulate the process that went into making such films.
“I have always been an avid fan of espionage stories and have admired the kind of research that goes into making such films. As a screenwriter, some of the details that go into the movie are real. These are not concocted dangers that we are showing. I’m not playing the boogeyman for the world. This is real. These things have actually happened. It’s thrilling, frightening,” he added.
Kamal Hassan said that he paid for the action sequences with bone injuries and applause. “I didn’t have time for sports and adventures. My profession is my sports and adventure. So, I really enjoyed doing the stunts. It’s nice having a jungle gym in the workplace,” he said.
Working with Birju Maharaj was a dream come true for Haasan. “I couldn’t afford it when I was in my teens. It was the perfect time to start with a master like him. It didn’t happen then. Delhi was too far away and my budget was far too less. But then life took me to another direction. I did learn classical dancing – Bharathanatyam but I always dreamt of learning from Panditji,” he said.
He felt equally thrilled about the opportunity to act opposite Waheeda Rahman. “I never thought it was going to happen in my life. For me, it was like time travel. I was sharing the same space with Kaagaz Ke Phool’s heroine. There’s a film called Purple Rose In Cairo by Woody Allen. It felt like that. I was sitting there talking to her and it didn’t feel different. Time, age all ceased to exist,” he added.
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Actors are a pampered lot, Kamal said. “But, that experience does help when directing action. But direction is another thing. I came into this industry to be a director. I am a reluctant actor. But this is a paying job. So I use the payment that I got as an actor to realise my vision as a filmmaker. I didn’t have lofty ideals of taking cinema to another level. I just want to take my film to another level.”
The fifteen-minute event was made more interesting by comments from his fans. A section of the fans asked for the release dates of his long-awaited Marudhanayagam and earnest requests to speak in Tamil. A few wondered why the actor did not miss out on an opportunity to promote his political party, while a majority asked him to evict Aishwarya Dutta from Bigg Boss 2 ( a show that he hosts ) for her ‘racist’ remarks in a recent episode.