R Madhavan plays the lead role in Rocketry: The Nambi Effect.
R Madhavan’s Rocketry: The Nambi Effect has hit the theatres. Madhavan makes his directorial debut with the film based on the life of former rocket scientist at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Dr Nambi Narayanan and trials he faced after he was tagged as a traitor.
In this interview with indianexpress.com, Madhavan opens up about why he was so inspired to make a film on a scientist who was charged with espionage and arrested, and had to fight a long battle to prove his innocence. Calling his debut film as a director also his last, he terms himself one of the first actors to set the “trend of pan India film” but was “never given credit for” it.
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Rocketry is technically rich, and the actor- filmmaker emphasises on the importance of not dumbing it down despite the film dealing with rocket science. “People are upset with the film industry for thinking that they’re far more intelligent than their audience. Name one niche project which is actually so intellectually superior that the audience didn’t get us? We’ve actually fallen flat over and over again simply because our makers are not intelligent enough for our audience. When Tom Hanks does something or when James Cameron or Steven Spielberg say something, we want to believe what they say. Whereas none of our directors have managed to gain that kind of respect from our audiences. Then why are we ‘niche’?”
Talking about picking up Nambi Narayan’s life as a subject, he says, “I think Nambi Narayanan is the most commercially cinematic life I’ve seen. I regret that I have only two-and-a-half hours to tell his story, I need 12 to do justice to it, there hasn’t been a minute of boredom in his life. I had to throw out so much from his story, from his biopic, that it almost feels criminal. Like, the whole case is not there in my film. How did a common man go and turn the Supreme Court around. How did he sleep on the staircase of the Supreme Court just to get the judge’s attention, how did he fight his own case without lawyers… I’ve dropped all that.”
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Nambi Narayanan’s contribution to India’s space research was recognised recently when he was awarded the Padma Bhushan at the age of 80. He had led his team to develop the Vikas Engine and help India dive into the era of PSLV rockets. But Madhavan says the film is not a patriotic one. He says, “I don’t think it is as patriotic as people make it out to be. Nambi Narayanan was passionate about what he wanted to achieve and that happened to align with the interest of the country. So we are not jingoistic patriotic, it is like when you watch the film that you’ll feel, ‘haan yaar, isne desh ke liye itna kiya!’ It is more like, ‘isne kiya, aur bhayankar tarike se kiya!’ and it also happened to be good for the country.”
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Rocketry marks Madhavan’s directorial debut, be he doesn’t want to direct films anymore. “I am not qualified to direct, I’ve never been anything when it comes to filming except as an actor. My respect for these directors, however valid their films are, has grown tremendously and I can understand the agony they go through. I’ve been an actor and I want to live that nice life, direction is something I’ll do when I stop getting acting jobs.”
Also read | Madhavan on Shah Rukh Khan’s role in Rocketry The Nambi Effect: ‘Not a passing role, it is pretty much throughout the film’
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In Hindi cinema, Madhavan started his career in 1996 with Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin, but gained recognition with Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein (2001). “When you think of of me, you think of ‘Sach Keh Raha Hai Deewana’. Let me reveal a scret. Everybody appreciated the fact that I was sitting in the bus and actually crying in this shot, but in reality, we didn’t have time and they (the makers) had not fed us one whole night. It was four in the morning, and I really cried because I wanted to go home. So, things kinda a materialised that way.”
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Rocketry: The Nambi Effect has been shot simultaneously in Hindi, English and Tamil and it is dubbed in Telugu and Malayalam. When asked if he decided to do so because pan-India films are in trend today, he replies, “My films have always been pan India. I think the rest of the world is catching up to me, I already set the trend many years ago. Ramji Londonwaley or 13B, which was one of the first films to be shot simultaneously, Rocketry has the distinction of being shot in three languages, forget about two. So, people don’t give me credit but I am the one to set the trend multiple times.”
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