Kamal was interviewed for Puththagam Pesudhu (Tamil magazine on books), in its special edition released for the Chennai book exhibition held in January. Bubbling with enthusiasm and ideas, Kamal covers a wide range of topics related to books, movies, religion and society. In the end, the reader is astounded with his depth of knowledge and wisdom. Though we are unable to reproduce this very long interview or provide a link to it, here are some highlights.

• He encourages the efforts of the people behind this magazine.
• He talks about an aborted attempt with writer Balakumaran to provide meaningful stories as comic strips. He puts forward an idea of narrating stories through FM radio!
• He talks about his early inhibition to write in Tamil and how RC Sakthi helped him overcome it. He first wrote a short story titled “Ninaivugal” (Memories).
• Talking of the influences of books in his movies, he mentions Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. He says that Saket of Hey Ram was influenced by the character of Raskolnikov.
• He openly talks about his fascination for women and obsession with sex-related books during his adoloscent years. He also speaks about how he evolved into an atheist.
• He goes onto talk about his literary heroes incluing Jayakanthan, Jeyamohan and Sundararamasami. Regarding movies, he mentions his “Close net film society” efforts and is confident of changing the nature of movies in India.
• He praises fellow actor Sivakumar for not having a fans’ association. He also elaborately evaluates Sivaji Ganesan’s acting.
• During the interview, Kamal quotes a censored dialogue from Mumbai Xpress, which is based on Gandhi’s three monkeys!

Translation of some snippets:

• Since profound literature was boring, readers stuck to trivial magazines. As we forgot to mix it with honey, only honey bottles are being provided nowadays.
• Is the side-dish alone enough? Don’t we need to eat the main dish? People imagine that the side-dish alone would fill stomachs. That’s sad.
• There is this book called Tao of Physics. I like such ones…I promise I didn’t understand it.
• In my house too, there were people who read books. But in Brahmin households, English had the first priority. Only women used to talk about Tamil novels. Due to the interest of my mother and sister, I too got introduced to Tamil.
• I’m a pedestrian politician. I’m not searching for my leader in Delhi, but on the streets.
• When Ananthu died, two boxes full of books came to my house. I leaned on the box and cried out loud. That is my relationship with books.
• Great writers do contain themselves due to their desire to feature in Ananda Vikatan and Kumudham (top Tamil magazines). Sivaji did the same.
• Shouldn’t Sivaji and Satyajit Ray have worked together? Language is a reason. We don’t have a national language.
• Rajni came (without knowing Tamil), isn’t it? No one puts in efforts like his these days.
• The air-conditioner in my office runs because movies have become a business.

Let’s end with some seemingly outrageous statements on one of his pet topics, atheism:

• It is difficult to make me believe in God after all these years.
• If the religious heads didn’t keep dancing this way, a person like me wouldn’t have come to atheism.
• Ramanuja was an atheist too. Christ was an atheist too. In their times.

If you can get hold of the issue, enjoy another of Kamal’s dimensions.

[Via an unassuming source who wishes to remain anonymous]

Though not a full-blown interview, Kamal shares some thoughts presently in his mind to Times of India. The newspaper tries to sensationalize the piece by referring to his personal life and beliefs. Nevertheless, we’ll see what Kamal has to say, including doing a movie with Shruti.

“Marmayogi will be shot in Hindi as well,” Kamal says. “But I’m doing things at my own pace. I’m one of the few filmmakers in Chennai who takes every Sunday off.”

What would really excite him is a project with Shruti. “Of course, it would be interesting to work with my daughter. But it has to be an apt script. A great father-daughter story would be a perfect casting for us,” he says, hoping somebody will come up with such a script.

“…I am deeply hurt by what is happening around in the name of religion. I personally feel, whenever there is a crisis, God becomes a mere witness. I am happy with my decision,” he explains.

Read the whole piece.

As we count the days to the release of Dasavatharam, the audio launch is coming soon. As reported earlier, Jackie Chan and a host of Indian stars will illuminate the function. This news has been widely covered: The Hindu | Galatta.com | Nowrunning.com | AOL.in | Behindwoods. The trailer is also expected to be released alongside. While the date was earlier mentioned as March 10, it seems to have been shifted to March 14, according to Sify.com. This piece also talks about computer graphics being done in multiple locations.

Meanwhile, The Hindu carried a short interview with Devi Sriprasad who is handling the background score. He calls himself a “devotee of Kamal Haasan”!

[With inputs from Ananth]

Here’s a very old piece from Rediff.com — a chat Kamal had with readers around the time of Hey Ram. Here goes Kamal, “at his wittiest best”:

…Have you ever considered making English movies? What would be your dream role?
Marudanaayagam.

Did you fear about the future when you are waiting for a breakthrough in filmdom during your adoloscence? And what would you have been now if had not been that lucky?
I never fear the unknown, if I hadn’t been that lucky I would have been a film buff.

Kamalji, how did you feel when you lost the address slip from Amala in Pushpak (last scene)?
That was not Amala’s address, don’t worry I know her address

How long do you think you can act in movies? Acting in one movie in a year, how many movies (like Hey! Ram) do you think you can give in your lifetime? Have you ever thought about this kind of planning ?
Yes, when you can think about it, you bet on your computer I would have thought about it a thousand times.

After Hey! Ram, what characters do you look forward to playing or enjoy acting?
One that gets the most applause:-)

How I wished you, the Indian/Hindustani/Bharatheeyudu, were there at KANDAHAR on IC 814, to ploy that martial art, one twist of the hijackers’ nerves, and they would have dropped dead!….No?
You are watching too many movies. NO?

Kamal, why do you make a point of having kissing scenes in your films lately??
You don’t ask that of songs? Do you like music so much? Or is it that you hate sucking face?

How I cried, watching you in Saagara Sangamam, especially when you sob holding Jaya Prada’s hand for getting a chance to perform at a cultural festival. What is it in you that makes viewers cry?
I hope it’s not my bad acting;-)

You had told that you had the habit of going through Karl Marx’s Das Capital every night before going to bed. What is the speciality of that book that attracted you?
Assured sound sleep within a few pages, I’m yet to complete it. I’m sure I’ll have company in many modern communists.

Thanks, I enjoyed it, but if I yawn, you’ll think I didn’t:-) I am because I got up at 5 and have to do that again tomorrow. *yawn* I loved it. Thank you *yawn* sorry all. Goodnight*yawn* Will be back sometime when I’m not this sleepy good *yawn* sorry night.

Enjoy the whole chat.

I happened to see an interview of Kamal Haasan in a Malayalam channel when I was on holiday in Kerala recently. As usual, I was bowled over by his thought provoking views. I seem to be going very close to idolizing him!

I just wanted to put down two quotes from his interview as it struck me as very profound. So here goes.

1. To a question about religion (I didn’t hear the question fully as I just then switched on the TV), he said, “Would anyone ask a man if he is a man or a woman or what he did with his wife yesterday night? Religion is just as personal. No one should ask anyone else about it”. I thought this was a beautiful way of looking at religion and that if everyone thought of it this way, may be we will have more peace and harmony in our universe.
2. The host questioned him about whether he was afraid of aging. To which he answered, “No. Why would I? I look at life as a journey and death as a part of that journey; So, I can’t be scared of it. Every sentence has a full stop, otherwise the sentence will become boring. It’s the same with life.” I was so enthralled with this analogy, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So, obviously the next thing was to blog about it.

I am not sure how this goes down with all of you, but because I caught myself thinking so much about it, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put it down for those of you who would want to reflect on it.

[Original post on My mazed interior - My Mind blog]

Here’s a long, wonderful 2-part interview with Kamal done quite a while ago, by S Shiva Kumar. Shiva has been featured in multiple publications (including The Hindu. Times of India and Rediff.com), now has a blog and his admiration for Kamal comes through effortlessly. An earlier post on this blog provided delightful insights from Vishnuvardhan, the Kannada superstar, through the same journalist. We’ll have more from him in the future too.

Now, back to Kamal and the interview. From the focus on Hey Ram and direction, we can see that it was done around the turn of the millenium. Here are some highlights from a quote-collector’s delight:

I am not even rising above mediocrity. I am mediocre and have kept myself that way.

I keep trying because I’m a student of cinema and a film buff…I don’t care.

About this closet direction, no. Mine was a glass case. Everyone knew.

Even now, for me, the making of the film is more important. It doesn’t matter who gets the title. I can afford to say that because I have my face printed on celluloid.

I never wanted to be an actor. I love my crew. I want to be with them, not rise above them. Rising above them is easy. You become a tyrant, a genius or an eccentric. You rise above them and they give you a misnomer. They’ll call you a tyrant, a genius and vice versa.

Whenever I ask myself what stage of career I’m in right now, I don’t really know the answer. It’s very confusing.

I may not act at all. That’s what I tell people, but nobody takes me seriously. I might slip behind the camera. It would have happened if Hey! Ram had succeeded.

I used to be a common man and all that I’ve achieved is not real. It’s all piled on to me; it’s acquired.

My themes are very repetitive…Mine is a man’s suffering and his struggle to rise above it.

For the last 15 years, it’s my neck on the line every time. Nobody has the audacity to talk about personal losses, if at all there is any.

This dancing and prancing around and romancing heroines is on request. It comes absolutely from the audience. They want one dance and the request comes from someone in Silicon Valley

I expected from Hey! Ram whatever I expected from all my other films — success.

Even if you say I made Hey! Ram, it wouldn’t be completely right. It is not possible to do it alone. My cameraman, my art director and my costume department are equally important. I could sleep well at night because I had this crew….I don’t say this out of humility. I’m confident I would have made Hey! Ram without the Thirus and Sarikas, but that’s an arrogant way of looking at it. It would have moved away inch by inch from whatever little perfection we’ve achieved.

I felt it was high time someone at least felt sorry instead of licking their tongue like a Farex baby at the situation. That’s neither mamta (affection) nor sympathy.

It’s not chic to be a Gandhi fan. And it is clichéd to say Gandhi is a good man because it has been said a million times before. He is even on a damn rupee note. It is as boring as a non-detailed lesson. You are never going to get the moral of it till you get a detailed story.

…the debt is one’s own definition. Well, Rs 120 to Rs 150 million is a lot of money. I have to get it back and I am smiling. There’s no panic.

The only man I admire who transgressed is Spielberg. That must have been from (Francis Ford) Coppola, who must have been a great inspiration.

Especially Mani. I was astounded by him. I sort of vacillate sometimes. He never did. It’s probably that business management training. He’s very clear.

I am constantly in touch with Benegal because he’s my inspiration for Marudanayagam. He saw the script and his excitement was contagious. He thinks it is colossal and gave his suggestions. He’s a young man with a bald head. His spirit is great.

Govind and Manmohan Shetty, after Hey! Ram took a nosedive, had a small party, quietly and kept saying good things about the film. It was a touching gesture.

I recently saw a 25-year-old film. I was floored. It was shown on HBO and the film is Godfather. Absolutely classic…Performances do not have to be the latest when you’re looking at the greatest.

Move onto Shiva’s blog for the full interview.

In an interview to The Hindu on the sidelines of IFFK, Kamal confirmed that his next movie is indeed Marmayogi. Among other things, he also talks again about a bilingual with Mohanlal. Highlights:

“As far, I am concerned, ‘Dashavataaram,’ which will be released next year, is history. I am immersed in my next film, ‘Marmayogi,’ a bilingual period film in Hindi and Tamil, set in the seventh century. It will be the biggest film made in Tamil and it is being scripted and directed by me”.

“Success is difficult to quantify. Once, it meant the amount of money I earned. Then I found that I yearned for creative heights as an actor. So the idea of success keeps evolving. Finally, I decided that I would do only one film at a time and give it my best. That is what I have done with ‘Dashavataaram. That is what intend to do with ‘Marmayogi,’” he avers.

“Why compare karimeen (Pearl spot) and tandoori chicken? Films are made by a team and the festival must cater to each segment in that team and give them the opportunity to learn and evolve in their areas of interest”.

Read the complete interview on The Hindu’s web-site.

[Via Ananth]

We have been talking about Chachi 420 aka Avvai Shanmughi quite a bit lately. So, this may not be a bad time to look back at an interview from that period. Yes, we had a Screen interview too; but let’s see what Kamal said on Rediff.com:

“The film will do well, I hope,” says Kamal Hasan, who is in Bombay for the release. And if it does become a hit, he hopes he will have a longer tenure in Bollywood than he did after that mega-grosser Ek Duje Ke Liye.

“It was a big mistake but let us not talk about all those controversies,” says Kamal Hasan.

“See, she had come in time; there were others waiting too. In fact, everyone had to wait for me to get ready because my make-up took quite some time to happen. There were all these senior artistes also waiting for me. They never cribbed. Then who is Ashwini, sir?”

“Sorry for the outburst,” eventually he says, contritely.

Flashback to 1958 or so…A little boy comes along with a doctor to treat a woman who is ill at the home of movie mogul A V Meyyappa Chettiar of the AVM Studios. Suddenly a man on the first floor of the bungalow begins shouting into a phone. The doctor is discomfited, but not young Kamal Hasan of Ramanathapuram. He strides up the stairway and tells the astonished noisemaker, “Please keep quiet. Don’t shout over the phone like that. Someone in the house is ill.”

“I have notes for every department, telling them what they should be doing for that particular shot. That makes things a lot easier,” he says.

“As a professional I may have achieved something, but I am an ordinary human being. I laugh, I get angry easily and do things much as others do. I’m not a star, I’m not different from others. Even if I like to think I am someone special, the fact is I’m not.”

“I have just been making films I want to. The audience has been pretty kind, watching and appreciating my films.”

There’s some more stuff to be shared on the AIDS campaign. We start with the earlier-mentioned TV ad. Then, we have a news snippet from IBNLive, which also touches upon Dasavatharam, including sound bites from Asin.

Not to be left behind, NDTV featured an interview with Kamal. Behindwoods and IndiaGlitz also did their part.

With Chanakyan not coming up as part of the Kamal A2Z series yet, this might be a good time to hear from the old favourite’s director. Here’s an old interview from Rediff.com with Rajeev Kumar. Excerpts:

…I had this dream of making a film with mimicry as the background.

Finally, when I got my chance to make a film for Navodaya, I thought of my dream. As the director, I was very excited about the theme and the climax because I thought it was very unconventional.

…Then Navodaya fixed up an appointment with Kamal Haasan for me. I went there, met him and narrated the script. He agreed to do the film. Remember, I didn’t know him at all. I told him, “This is my first film and the producer has confidence in me. Similarly, you should have confidence in me. I cannot make any changes in the script as this is my first film and this is the way I want to make it.” He was very positive in his approach.

The advantage I had by making the film with Kamal was that nobody expected anything from him as he experimented with bold themes. Every twist in the story stunned the audience. That was why the film became a big commercial success. The film surprised the audience.

…Chanakyan was a success and was well appreciated. But the reality was something else. Not a single producer came forward with an offer because Chanakyan did not fall in the usual commercial category. They considered its success an accident.

I was worried. Then, I was asked to do a period film with Kamal. Kamal was very excited about the project but, after researching and working on the script for more than a year, it did not work out.