Southern superstar Mammootty is on his way to the record books. For the first time in the Indian movie industry a film will have its fourth sequel and Mammootty has been a part of all the four films.
‘CBI Diarykurippu’ was released in 1987 and since then we’ve had ‘CBI Jaagrata’ and ‘CBI Sethurama Iyer’ and soon we’ll shoot for ‘CBI Neraiyan’. "All the CBI films have been blockbusters and each case has been tougher than the previous one," says Mammootty. No wonder his fans are already looking forward to this supernatural crime whodunit.
The actor, with over 300 films under his belt, was in Mumbai to promote his latest Hindi venture ‘Sau Jhooth Ek Sach’.
Incidentally the film is Mammootty’s second Hindi film after the super disastrous ‘Dhartiputra’, a film which even he would like to forget.
There was also ‘Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar’, which was dubbed in Hindi and fetched him his third Best Actor National Award. So, why hasn’t the Malyalam actor done mainstream Hindi films? "Who would cast me as a sole hero in a commercial Hindi film," asks Mammootty. "I have no illusion about my salability," he adds.
While he knows that a commercial Hindi film is probably not going to happen in a hurry, Mammootty finds the North-South divide in Bollywood tough to digest. "Why do people expect to me speak Hindi without the South Indian accent? Don’t you have actors with Bihari or Mumbaiya accents? Why discriminate against us? We are Indian actors too," says the 53-year-old Mammootty.
His solution for bridging the gap is that Hindi multi-starrers feature South Indian actors. "Down South more people will watch Hindi films which feature Southern stars, while they will also get an all-India exposure. It would be a win-win situation for both the industries," he adds.
Having little exposure out of Kerala and, may be, Tamil Nadu hasn’t bothered Mammootty too much. "Why should I get upset about the fact that no one knows me in Mumbai or Delhi? I can walk the streets without being stopped by anyone. I’m rather happy about the fact that I get mobbed in Kerala instead."
