When Srinivasan Left Rajinikanth Crying After A Film Screening: Should We Ask Kamal Haasan To Act In Tamil Remake?

Sreenivasan,

Veteran Malayalam actor, writer, director, and producer passed away on 20 December Saturday, at the age of 69. With his death, Malayalam cinema has lost one of its most honest and fearless voices.The star leaves behind a legacy of cinematic classics that are filled with memorable characters in his five-decade-long career. Before his career in films began, Sreenivasan had studied along with Rajinikanth, in the then Madras. An alumnus of the prestigious MGR Government Film and Television Training Institute (formerly known as the Adyar Film Institute), he shared a strong bond with Tamil cinema icon Rajinikanth. Years later, Sreenivasan's film teared up Rajinikanth so much that he hugged him and broke down.

How Sreenivasan Helped Superstar Rajinikanth To Prioritise Himself Over Kamal Haasan

In an interview with Reddif, Sreenivasan once shared an incident where he “made Rajinikanth cry”, which later led the Tamil superstar to star in the remake of a Malayalam blockbuster written by him. In the 2000s, at the peak of his career, Sreenivasan wrote a movie titled Kadha Parayumbol. Amid its massive success in Malayalam, renowned Tamil director P Vasu came across the film and asked Rajinikanth to watch it.

Recalling the experience, he said “I was in Mumbai at that time and could arrive at the preview theatre only when the movie was about to end. The producer had told Rajnikanth that I would be there. When the film ended, I saw him step out of the theatre, his eyes filled with tears. He was looking for me. He was so emotional that he hugged me for a very long period. After a while, he said, ‘You made me cry. He (Rajinikanth) then took me to the conference room and started asking me questions. We knew each other when we were students at the film institute, but we were not very close friends. I didn’t know then that Shivaji Rao Gaekwad would one day become Rajnikanth! That day, he was more curious to know more about me than about the film itself. "

He later confessed that Rajinikanth even considered asking Kamal Haasan to play the lead role in the Tamil remake.On the second day, he spoke to me about the subtle scenes in the film. It appeared now that he just wanted to talk about the film alone. We then met a third time the following day. The first thing he told me was, ‘All my friends tell me that I should do the film. But I signed up for Robot (Enthiran) three days ago. What do you say if Kamal Haasan did this film?’ I told him, ‘Why should we discuss another actor?’ And then I said, ‘Come to think of it, is this not the story of a Shivaji Rao?’ But when I wrote the story, I didn’t think of Shivaji Rao.”

He concluded by saying ‘theriyum, theriyum…‘ (I know, I know…) He thought for a while and said in a low voice, ‘pannarathukum mudiyala… vidarthakum mudiyala… (I can’t do it… but I can’t bring myself to let it go either…)’ Later P Vasu told me how Rajnikanth mimicked me and reproduced all that I said verbatim (laughs). All of them had a hearty laugh watching him mimic me,” he said. Rajinikanth went on to star in the Tamil and Telugu remakes of Kadha Parayumbol, titled Kuselan and Kathanayakudu, respectively, playing the role originally played by Mammootty. While Pasupathy portrayed Sreenivasan’s role in Tamil, Jagapati Babu took on the role in Telugu. However, both movies failed to match the success of the iconic Malayalam film.