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Actor Kamal Haasan and director Mani Ratnam reunited after nearly four decades recently. They worked together on the crime epic Thug Life, which debuted to massive anticipation but tanked at the box office. In fact, it’s one of the biggest flops of the year. In an interview, Kamal Haasan’s daughter, actor-musician Shruti Haasan, was asked if she has spoken to him about the film’s box office underperformance. She said that he is above money matters.
Chatting with The Hollywood Reporter India, Shruti said that she considers her father to be the sun that casts a shadow more than the shadow itself. She admitted that when she was starting out, people had presumptions about what sort of person she’d be, and already had ideas about how she should behave. She said, “In the beginning, I was really trying to find my feet in three industries. The Telugu industry was very helpful, and very lucrative financially, but most of all, they gave me my first taste of acceptance and the freedom to grow as an artist,” she said.
She continued, “People had perceptions about what this gentleman’s daughter should dress like, sound like, look like, act like, behave like, and I very categorically decided that I will do what’s right for my stride.” Shruti said that the general public doesn’t know that she has been paying her own bills and making a space for herself, independently of her father’s influence. She said that they barely even discuss work, and that she had no idea what Thug Life was about until she watched it as a fan.
Asked if she has spoken to her father about the film’s disastrous performance at the box office, she said, “Normal people commenting on numbers wasn’t a conversation even 10 years ago. It was not something that I ever thought of as an actress. I never thought about if I am in a Rs 200 crore film or a Rs 300 crore film. I just wanted my last installment of payment and leave. Now, the audiences are speaking that way. My dad comes from a time and a mindset where he put all of his own money back into cinema. He didn’t spend it on a second property or a third car, it all went back into cinema. I don’t think that numbers game affects him in the way that people perceive. It’s more of a nouveau riche problem.”
Also starring Silambarasan and Trisha Krishnan, Thug Life reportedly cost around Rs 300 crore. It made less than Rs 100 crore worldwide, marking a major setback for both Kamal Haasan, who was coming off of the hit film Vikram, and Mani Ratnam, who had last directed the epic two-part Ponniyin Selvan movies. The movie was embroiled in a controversy prior to its release.
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