Kamal Haasan, India’s original pan-India star, walked away from Bollywood in the 80s, left Manmohan Desai fuming: ‘I asked for script and he…’

Kamal Haasan spoke about how Bollywood films took years to make, often going into a spiral of reshoots as the reason for walking away from the industry. Not getting scripts also made him take this decision.

The time when Kamal Haasan turned down a lucrative career path as a Hindi movie star after the success of Ek Duuje Ke Liye

Kamal Haasan was the original Pan Indian superstar, much before the term was even coined. A superstar in Tamil cinema from the late 70’s, Kamal Haasan was already offered Hindi films at a young age. However, he made his sparkling debut in Bollywood in the year 1981 with the ever classic Ek Duuje Ke Liye opposite Rati Agnihotri. Directed by his mentor K Balachandar, this was a remake of their own Telugu blockbuster ‘ Maro Charitra’, which was released in 1978. Kamal Haasan established himself in Hindi cinema with just one film, and the blockbuster success of this eternal love story gave one the feeling that he would be shifting base to Mumbai from his hometown as the new star on the block.

However, after the success of Ek Duuje Ke Liye, Kamal Haasan returned to Hindi cinema only in the year 1982 with Sanam Teri Kasam. He continued to do occasional Hindi films like Yeh To Kamaal Ho Gaya, Saagar, Zara Si Zindagi, and Sadma, among others. But the number of films was drastically lower compared to his densely packed body of work at the same time in Tamil cinema.

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Kamal Haasan never chose the easy path. In a recently resurfaced interview, while talking to Vir Sanghvi, he was asked the reason for not pursuing the leading man’s career in Hindi cinema even after getting off to a flying start with Ek Duuje Ke Liye. Kamal Haasan humbly responds, “The reason is that I have this addiction to finishing a film before moving on to my next film. I abide by that. By the time I finish a project in Hindi, one and a half years have already passed by. You lose touch with the outside world. The clothes you are wearing have gone out of fashion. You reshoot. You look fatter, slimmer, etc. So many things happen after that point, so you miss out on things. It is tedious and frightening.”

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The ‘Hey Ram’ actor also shared an anecdote from his first meeting with blockbuster filmmaker Manmohan Desai and how his one request turned out to be the reason he was not able to make a Hindi film with the legendary director, “Manmohan Desai saab was very upset when I insisted on seeing a script for the film. I think the film was ‘Allah Rakha’. I could only apologize because I didn’t mean any disrespect to him. But he told me that even Mr Amitabh Bachchan doesn’t ask him for a script, to which I answered that maybe because he can afford to do that? It’s an honest answer. I was so excited to meet Manmohan saab, but so many things went against me.”

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