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In many ways, it is fair to say that actor Dinesh, formerly known as ‘Attakathi’ Dinesh, has graduated to being called ‘Gethu’ Dinesh after the blockbuster success of his recent film, Lubber Pandhu. The actor, who broke into the collective consciousness of the Tamil cinema audience with Pa Ranjith’s directorial debut, Attakathi, and became a household name with films like Raju Murugan’s Cuckoo, and Vetrimaaran’s Visaaranai, went through a considerable slump for a few years. However, ten years after Attakathi, he is back in business with Lubber Pandhu. In a roundtable interaction on Galatta Plus, Dinesh opened up about discovering success all over again, and the wonderful connect between Vetrimaaran and Attakathi.
Reminiscing on the path taken after the success of Attakathi, Dinesh said, “I often think if I should have taken a ‘mass’ film after Attakathi instead of pushing the boundaries of my health in Cuckoo. It disturbed my health, and I felt really bad for losing my energy that early in the game.” Nevertheless, Dinesh is now glad that Lubber Pandhu, which went through a lot of changes right from the time he was told the script to being translated on screen, has become what it is today. “It became a blessing, right?”
Responding to the high praise from Venkat Prabhu, director of GOAT, and a fellow panelist in the roundtable, Dinesh thanked him for the words, and pointed out that it was the Mankatha filmmaker and Vetrimaaran who facilitated the release of Attakathi, which was stalled due to various reasons. Talking about how Attakathi saw the light of day, Venkat said, “Ranjith and CV Kumar (producer) spoke to me about the plight, and I felt Gnanavel Raja could help in the release. We watched the film along with Vetrimaaran, and he laughed so hard that we all started to see his reactions instead of the film. We enjoyed the film, and it is that enjoyment that made Gnanavel agree.”
In fact, Venkat Prabhu candidly said that it was Vetrimaaran’s ringing laughter that pushed Gnanavel to buy and release the film. Adding to this interesting anecdote, Dinesh said, “Ranjith said, ‘Vetri sirichitte padatha vithutaaru (Vetri’s laughter sold the film).’”
Interestingly, 2024 saw the releases of important films of Ranjith (Thangalaan), Vetrimaaran (Viduthalai 2), Dinesh (Lubber Pandhu), Venkat Prabhu (GOAT), CV Kumar (Soodhu Kavvum 2) and Gnanavel Raja (Thangalaan and Kanguva).
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