Bhubaneswar: Bollywood giant Karan Johar, whose sexuality has been widely talked about, has once again attracted attention for lauding Mammootty’s character of a homosexual man in ‘Kaathal – The Core’.
At a recent panel discussion hosted by The Hollywood Reporter India, noted filmmakers like Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Pa Ranjith, Vetri Maaran and Mahesh Narayanan were all praise for veteran actors Rajinikanth and Mammoothy, who dared to play characters by stepping out of their comfort zones.
While Ranjith was impressed by Mammootty’s folk horror film ‘Bramayugam’, Johar said he was touched by the veteran’s portrayal of a middle-aged homosexual man in the 2023 Malayalam film ‘Kaathal – The Core’.
“How groundbreaking that was,” expressed Johar!
The panel also lauded Amitabh Bachchan for his action scenes in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’, at the age of 81.
Encouraging young actors to follow the footsteps of veterans, Mahesh said: “Stardom comes with a baggage, right? You have to collect this much money and it has to be a massive film etc. Mammootty doesn’t care about all these things. Be it a 40-day film or one that offers him only a small role, he is willing to do it. It’s about how well the role for him is written. Just like Amitabh Bachchan, Mammootty too has played all kinds of characters. So what he looks for now is how fresh the role is.”
Hinting at how stardom gets to the heads of some actors, filmmaker Vetri said that actors in South adapt themselves to the characters they play instead of changing the storyline to suit their stardom.
“All actors want to collaborate with directors who make unique and fresh films. But what happens is, they pick such directors and make them do their kind of films. Whereas when Rajinikanth calls Pa Ranjith, he wants to be part of a Ranjith film,” opined Vetri.
