R. Madhavan was looking for a cup of coffee when The Telegraph sat down for a chat with him at The Park’s boardroom on Monday. With his directorial debut, Rocketry: The Nambi Effect — based on the life and times of aerospace engineer Nambi Narayanan — which he has also written and acted in, releasing in 96 hours, the versatile actor winning hearts since his Sea Hawks days (if you are ’80s kid, you’ll know!) had hardly got some shut-eye in the last 15 days. He had taken an early morning flight to Calcutta, spoken at a media conference and was gearing up for a round of selected one-on-one interviews to be followed by another talk! Yet, he spoke to us cheerfully, his eyes twinkling with nervous anticipation about the film. We, of course, had to ask him about it being “showcased” at Cannes, his 16-year-old son Vedaant Madhavan bringing home swimming laurels and the secret to his evergreen relevance. Here’s Madhavan unplugged. #WeLove
Have you fully got back to the grind of physical promotions?
I didn’t think this through! First of all promotion by itself is a torture. You have to be enthusiastic about answering all the questions like you have been asked that question for the very first time, lest the person asking the question feels offended. Generally, when there is a press conference, there are seven-eight people to take the weight off your shoulders. This is one crazy... (trails off). I never thought this through when I started the film ke publicity karte samai tere naani, pardada... sab yaad aa jayenge (laughs).
You have been to Kolkata many times. How has the city changed you think?
I saw a building today which reminded me of a building in Singapore (on the EM Bypass), which I had never seen. All the colours of the buildings have now become colourful. I haven’t been here long enough to feel the change. Again, the usual six-hour trip for me, but I always had fond memories from the time I have been here. This hotel, for instance, has been here forever. Nostalgic memories.
Your life has also taken unexpected turns much like Nambi Narayanan…
Dr Nambi Narayanan’s story, I hope and pray, is not similar to anybody’s life because it’s too traumatic. The scale of the unexpectedness, from agony to ecstasy and back, I don’t know if there is any similarity between that and my life. As an actor, I realised that I think I am unique because I went from Jamshedpur and became an actor in Mumbai. The truth is, anybody who has made it into the film industry and has survived and excelled, has a unique story. Nobody ever charted that map when they were in school. You can decide to be an engineer or a doctor and chart your life based on the business of your parents, but the film industry has a mind of its own. So to be part of it is not your choice. I honestly believe that you get chosen to be part of the film industry. On that front, I guess I was just lucky.
Just lucky? You are being too modest...
No, there are a lot of people who have immense talent. When I say lucky (I mean), how do you get into the industry and show your talent to such a great extent that your debut is with A.R. Rahman and Mani Ratnam and Shalini. How can you not bring luck into that picture? It is too presumptuous of me to say that my talent shone through before my first film to get a debut like that. So, yeah, I would have to thank providence for it.
Patriotism has been a part of your life consciously or subconsciously. Your son Vedaant Madhavan represents India in swimming. More than anything, was patriotism the reason you wanted to make this film?
I don’t think there was a top-of-the-mind reason to do this film... you have to define patriotism before we understand what it means. It’s not just feeling proud of who we are or wanting to do something vocally for the sake of the nation. If I take
Dr. Narayanan for instance. He is not the overt jingoistic patriot. There are some people who are so passionate about their work that they will go to any lengths to achieve it. Sometimes it seems to be aligned for the betterment of the nation and then they become patriots... somewhere deep in your mind, you automatically gravitate towards something that you think is for the betterment of people around you and that gets interpreted as maybe patriotism in today’s world. Maybe that is one of the reasons. Rang De Basanti (where he played a fighter pilot) resonates with me. This man’s story resonates with me. So, I won’t say that because of patriotism I did this film, but that feeling resonates with me. I am comfortable in that box.
It’s a massive project for you… would you call it pressure or responsibility?
There is no rationale behind doing this film. There isn’t. Anybody who is looking at business will tell me how stupid a decision this is, but then I argue back that the film industry has no business being called an industry because it has only seven or eight per cent success rate. So, it’s more of a gamble than an industry. So, on that account I might have been lucky enough to find people who are ready to fund this film. I am by and large a large part of the funding and the other two people came along as well. So, it’s not a responsibility. It’s not even a passion. It’s sort of a maniacal insanity to have gone down this road. It’s like going down Alice In Wonderland’s rabbit hole and hoping to come out and land on your feet, but if I look back right now, the chances of us landing on our feet was so minuscule that it’s ridiculous that we all embarked on it in the first place.
What was your mindspace in the last six years?
Writing it was a good part. That was fun and relief. I have been an integral part of all my screenplays but this time I actually wrote the screenplay. That was a new learning. At that time, there was no pressure because I was like: ‘Hoga toh hoga, else I’ll get somebody else to write it’. So, I wrote it freely. That turned out to be great. People who read the script at that time were moved. I thought oh maybe I have hit the ball. I have never written anything... even a letter since I left school.
I wanted to act in it because every actor dreams of playing a role from young to the old. You always imagine. Of course that was nowhere close to what this role demanded from me.
The third thing was to find a producer. Nobody believed that this was a commercially viable project, with respect to the traditional requirement in terms of the safety nets. I was happy that they said that because that’s always been the case with any of my films. When I did Tanu Weds Manu or Saala Khadoos or... Vikram Vedha... everybody always said ‘no’ till the film releases and then come back and say: ‘Why didn’t you come to me with the film?’ I am like, I did come to you, but you didn’t see me at that time but now that it’s made (Rs) 251 crores, it’s good for you to lament about it. They kept saying, there is no Sheila ki jawani, no six pack, no Munni badnaam hui... how is Tanu Weds Manu going to work? It looks like an ’80s film, but it made (Rs) 80 crores.
So, producing became a part of my portfolio with this film and my director left me at the last minute because he couldn’t adjust his dates and in a moment of bravado I said: ‘Chalo kar lete hain’. When I went to the sets on the first day it was a completely different story. My friend called me and said, one shot at a time. That’s how I started and we are ready to release it now.
Is it true that you picked up directorial lessons from Mani Ratnam?
Well you are always going to imbibe, especially if you have worked with him for five films. You are going to see how he treats his actors....
Did that help?
Hmmm... I have a different way of working with my actors than what others do. I like to get into their minds and I want to cast correctly so that I don’t have to work much, but again I am doing it for the first time. What do I know? It’s only after the film releases that people can tell me if I hit the ball straight or I completely missed. So, I don’t want to talk much and jinx it.
A lot of people have taken a lot of decisions in the last couple of years in the wake of the pandemic that they wouldn’t have earlier. We are so much more aware of our mortality right now. Had the pandemic not hit, would you too have taken this plunge so wholeheartedly?
One doesn’t want to have regrets. One has got into this FOMO (fear of missing out) feeling. You want to do everything that you want to do, but at the end of the day, this was not a let’s-get-this-out-of-my-bucket list endeavour. It was not just a token experience. This was a part of my life... six years of my life that I gladly gave and am proud of. If you ask me if I’d do it again, I absolutely would, maybe with a little bit more sanity.
Living with a story for six years is no mean feat. How do keep the focus unwavering? Things must have happened in your personal and professional life. Did that impact the product?
No, that impacts the selection of the product. I am picky about my stories because I value the final outcome to be intelligent enough, not to be a cringeworthy product for my viewers. Whatever I do, Breathe or Decoupled, it’s all well thought-out in the sense it resonates with the space I am in, in my life. So, I am thankfully spared from the requirement of doing one film every three months and generating four films in a year because maybe my financial requirements don’t compel me to do that nor does my mind have the bandwidth to accommodate so many projects.
You spoke about body transformation...
We did the research and took the plunge. I figured if anybody knows, I knew as much as them.... by and large we found a method... I can confidently say it worked for me. I still have my teeth and hair intact and I am fairly healthy. I don’t think anybody in the world has done this is any of the films that have been made.
What have been the biggest learnings from someone like Nambi sir?
When I first met him he looked like Rabindranath Tagore. He looks so peaceful and calm. Except for the visual optics, everything else was not like Rabindranath Tagore. He was very very agitated and in the first interview I saw of his, he had tears in his eyes. There was regret and sadness. That’s what made me want to do this film in the first place.
I realised that people like him, when they have a patriotic nerve, it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t matter what you have done as a country to him and his family and what you have done is cruel, but he is still batting for India. He is always considering ways and means to take India forward as far as space is concerned. So, I realised single-minded devotion is probably a DNA quality. I think we share that in common.
Second thing, we are both very impatient... to a fault, although our demeanour would not suggest that but when people feel the impact of our impatience, it’s quite a shock. We both are angry people and have no time for incompetency or for people who have promised us something and have taken the required reward and not been able to deliver. We’ll go after them like a hound. The one thing that I don’t share with him is his absolute harshness and cruelty that he is capable of inflicting if anything gets in the way of his ideas or country. I don’t know if I have it in me. I have never had to face that situation but I don’t know if I’ll have the ability to be as single-minded about it as him.
How have you dealt with impatience and anger in your career because film-making is a long process?
I haven’t dealt with it. Do I consider them as bad qualities, I would say ‘no’. I think impatience can also be interpreted as ambition at times and anger can be disguised as passion.
How was Cannes?
I am not the Cannes kind of movie guy.
But you have done such critically acclaimed films!
But none of them went to Cannes! (Laughs)
That’s their loss!
I agree (laughs).... Cannes has a different outlook. It is not my-kind-of-film space, with due respect to everything that it is, but I didn’t expect my first film as a director to be showcased at Cannes as a World Premiere. That is ridiculous and to have Shah Rukh Khan in it and Suriya in it and go to Times Square (where the film’s trailer played on the Nasdaq billboard). The film has a mind of its own... you either got to have insanity as your partner to agree to show your film 30 days before its release because it could have easily gone the other way. It’s a discerning audience. There was a chance that people would have started walking out of the film after 40 minutes or an hour or would have said: ‘All the best, I am sure you can do better’, and walked out. I was nervous. It reminded me of my ICSE/12th standard exam result... this was three time worse than that.
I was waiting outside the door and heard the last sound of the track of my film and then the resounding clap. When Dr. Nambi Narayanan got up and started walking with me, they started clapping louder. I won’t say it’s a great film or a fantastic film, but I’ll tell you that I didn’t mess it up. That was a big relief.
You looked like a Hollywood star on the red carpet...
What do you mean?! (Smiles) Why are we not better than Hollywood stars? We are a bigger industry.... I am not flattering myself. You know me... I have never done those kind of pictures, photo shoots. For me to get into a pose and spread my hands and look like a star is cringeworthy in my books, but my wife said, ‘You are going there all the way and you are going to be on the red carpet looking like a lallu?!’ Some bhoot got into me! I started giving these poses. Look at how I am dressed now! Bullshit! (Laughs)
You must be very proud of your son...
Who isn’t? (Smiles) Every father is proud of their son irrespective of their achievements.
Does he want to be become a professional sportsman?
As of now... like all teenagers he has a mind of his own. Actually he is getting a little more credit than he deserves and both of us realise that. He’s just won a couple of medals internationally that happened to be gold and silver at an event that had a few countries in it (Danish Open). He has to still go to the Commonwealth (Games) and make his way to the Olympics. Both of us realise that itna bhi nahin kiya tune... teer nahin mara.... Thankfully, he is very grounded and training hard and we are hoping good news comes from his end.
What’s the secret to your relevance?
That I would take credit for because I do my research. I am on the Net and never sleeping for more than four-five hours under normal circumstances. In the last 15 days, it’s been about 20-30 minutes. I try to stay ahead of the curve. I don’t want to lose the relevance or earn people’s pity when they come to see my movie. I’d rather die. They need to come thinking I am relevant. I am not being able to beat them on six packs and eight packs and dancing abilities and flying off planes with doors open like Tom Cruise. Let’s attack from the opposite angle!