Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma are two filmmakers who continue to make films in the South, where they started their careers, even after making major breakthroughs in Hindi cinema. They’ve even collaborated on two films as co-writers and a third one as co-producers. However, they haven’t collaborated again in the last 27 years. Varma has now revealed that neither he nor Ratnam likes each other’s films. He also called them too “strong-headed” to collaborate again. “I’m not really a fan of Nayakan. Actually, Mani doesn’t like any of my films. I don’t like Mani’s films. That’s like our relationship,” said the filmmaker.
Varma claimed that while there are moments he appreciates in Ratnam’s 1987 Tamil cult classic crime thriller Nayakan, including Kamal Haasan’s performance, he doesn’t like the film as a whole. On the podcast MPower by Maathevan, he reasoned, “Maybe I also know that character too well, Varadarajan Mudaliar, what it’s based on.”
In Nayakan, the character of Kamal Haasan is based on Mumbai underworld don Varadarajan Mudaliar. It’s an area of interest for Varma, who has made memorable crime dramas based in Mumbai, like Satya (1998), Company (2002), and Sarkar (2005) among others. “Kamal’s performance, all that is fine. There are moments too. But Mani didn’t influence me,” added Varma.
Varma said the figure from the Tamil film industry who influenced him instead was late legendary filmmaker K Balachander, who also produced Ratnam’s 1993 romantic thriller Roja. “In fact, recently, I was watching a Tamil/Telugu film of his, I don’t remember. I was surprised to see how similar my cuts are. Obviously, because I learnt from him. He came much before me, so the editing and dialogue are so similar, which means they came from there,” added Varma.
Varma and Ratnam co-wrote the story of Varma’s 1993 Telugu political crime thriller Gaayam and Ratnam’s 1993 Tamil black comedy caper Thiruda Thiruda. Later, they co-produced Ratnam’s 1998 Bollywood romantic thriller Dil Se.. along with Shekhar Kapur. However, the two filmmaker haven’t collaborated since.
“We like each other as people. I think we both wanted to make our own films. He didn’t listen to one idea of mine, and I didn’t listen to one idea of his. So we made our own films,” said Varma, adding, “Both of us are very strong-minded people. He’s got a very unique way of making films, and I have my own style. So two strong-minded creative people collaborating, I don’t think it can happen.”
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Ratnam has most recently directed the Tamil crime thriller Thug Life, in which he’s reunited with Haasan 38 years after Nayakan. Backed by their respective production houses Madras Talkies and Raaj Kamal Films International, Thug Life has failed to create an impact at the domestic box office.
