Hollywood films lift scripts from Tamil films, Kamal Haasan claims

Kamal Haasan has said that even Hollywood film-makers don’t mind in ‘lifting’ scripts from successful films made in South in general and in Tamil in particular. Kamal said this and spoke on various other issues during a recent interview he gave to scribes in Hyderabad.

“It is not true that all my films get unduly delayed in their release in theatres. I shot my Viswaroopam in just six months but the whole world knows what happened when I attempted to release it; I completed Viswaroopam 2 in just three months. However, we faced problems on the production front and it got delayed. In the meantime, I have completed two films in Uttama Villain and Papanasam.

“It is not new for me to essay many kinds of roles simultaneously in films. I had done Maro Charitra and Manmadhaleelai simultaneously in the past. It is not so easy to direct a film while playing the lead role in it.

In Uttama Villain, I had to allot hours together to get the right kind of make-up required for my roles in the film.Ramesh Aravind and I share the same kind of thoughts and it was easy for me to work under him.

“The late K. Balachander’s presence has now made Uttama Villain an invaluable treasure for me. My life as an actor is a gift from Balachander; but for him, I wouldn’t have become a doctor. I would have only become an assistant director or a choreographer,” he said emotionally.

“I’m not a fitness freak; I get up early only when it is necessitated by my shooting schedules or personal work,” said Kamal and said that it was indeed a thing of worry that Tamil films haven’t produced actors of the caliber of the late S.V. Ranga Rao and Nagesh. On another note, he said that Hollywood film-makers steal scripts from South and Tamil films.

“My Swati Mutyam(Telugu version of Sippikkul Muthu) was made as Forrest Gump five years after it released in theatres; in fact, we should have filed cases against them,” Kamal observed.