How mimicry artist Gopalakrishnan became Dileep, Malayalam superstar who held sway beyond just acting

In the Malayalam film industry, Dileep had held his own for over two decades as a lead actor despite the dominance of superstars like Mammootty and Mohanlal. Not just in front of the camera, Dileep had expanded his influence to almost all aspects of the film industry, becoming a producer and exhibitor, as well as running other businesses.

The son of Padmanabhan Pillai and Sarojam from Aluva in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, Dileep’s real name is Gopalakrishnan. Like many in the Malayalam industry, Dileep, too, started as a mimicry artist at the famed Kochi-based Kalabhavan — a centre for performing arts that has helped many actors and filmmakers become household names in Kerala.

By the late 1980s, Gopalakrishnan himself had become a household name, having featured in the Malayalam TV channel Asianet’s comedy series ‘Comicola’ and later, ‘Cinemala’. But it was his mimicry act of Suresh Gopi — another Malayalam film star and now Union minister — that made him widely recognised.

In 1991, with the backing of actor Jayaram, another mimicry artist-turned-actor, Gopalakrishan joined the sets of the Mohanlal-starrer Vishnulokam as assistant to director Kamal, where his assignment was to use the clapperboard for Mohanlal.

After a string of nondescript roles while working as an assistant director, Gopalakrishnan finally got his breakthrough role with the 1994 comedy Manathe Kottaram, in which he played a character called Dileep. Since then, he has been known by that name.

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His first hit movie, Sallapam (1996), was a turning point in his career and life. His co-star, Manju Warrier, became his wife. They were married in 1998 but divorced in 2015. In 2016, Dileep married Kavya Madhavan, an actor he has performed opposite in several of his movies.

The prosecution in the 2017 case had alleged that Dileep held a grudge towards the rape victim because she purportedly told Warrier about his relationship with Madhavan.

Over the years, Dileep made several moves and garnered increasing power and influence in the Malayalam film industry. In early 2017, when the Kerala Film Exhibitors Federation went on a prolonged strike over a dispute with distributors, Dileep, who owned cinema halls that were also affected, ended the impasse by splitting the exhibitors’ body and forming a parallel body. “Hereafter, theatres will never be shut down, whatever the reason,” declared Dileep, after being elected president of FEUOK, a position that meant he now controlled the way movies were made and distributed in the state.

In 2008, Dileep is said to have walked out of a movie, asking for its director, Tulasidas, whose earlier movie had flopped, to be replaced.

As the Malayalam Cine Technicians Associations (MACTA), a body representing directors, threatened to boycott Dileep, he allegedly engineered a split of MACTA to help form the rival Film Employers’ Federation of Kerala. He also served as the treasurer of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), a powerful film body, which later suspended him after his arrest in the case.