Madhavan says he ‘didn’t make any money’ in the last four years, is in ‘constant fear’ about Rocketry
Actor R Madhavan, who will make his directorial debut with the upcoming biopic Rocketry – The Nambi Effect, said that he has a lot riding on the film, as he hasn’t had a major theatrical release since Vikram Vedha in 2017, and ‘didn’t make any money’ in the last four years. He has, however, appeared in a handful of streaming releases, which he said have ‘kept the fires’ burning in his house.
In an interview on the sidelines of the ongoing Cannes Film Festival, Madhavan told Film Companion that he feels ‘constant fear’ about Rocketry.
He said, “I have a son. There was Covid. I didn’t make any money during Covid. I didn’t make any money two years before Covid because I was doing this film. The things that kept me alive were the one-off chances I took on OTT to keep the fires burning, but apart from that, I haven’t done any films. My last film was Vikram Vedha, so there’s fear, there’s constant fear.”
He thanked his wife Sarita for being a ‘great support’. She told him that he’s happy despite being exhausted. “I said I’ll trade all the money in the world for that,” Madhavan said.
In Rocketry, Madhavan stars as Doctor Nambi Narayanan, a space scient who was involved in a spy scandal. As Madhavan joked in an interview with Variety, he directed Rocketry despite never having made a film before, even on an iPhone.
Madhavan said that he reached a ‘breakdown’ point when original director Anant Mahadevan quit the project a few days into filming, but he was encouraged Narayanan himself to take over as director, because he understood the subject so well. Madhavan insed that forget having to take creative liberties, he had to remove stories from the film to make it more ‘believable’.
The film also stars Simran, Rajit Kapur, Ravi Raghavendra, Misha Ghoshal, Gulshan Grover, Karthik Kumar and Dinesh Prabhakar with stars Shah Rukh Khan and Suriya. The film will be released in July, after premiering at the ongoing Cannes Film Market.
