R Madhavan did not like ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’: ‘Hollywood of late has disappointed me’

R Madhavan has hurt his leg, taking breaks between a long day of interviews to change the dressing on his foot. He cops to no jet lag, though I’m informed he flew in from Dubai the morning of. He’s been working more consistently — and unpredictably — in Hindi films. He was a monster in a hoodie in his last release, Shaitaan; his next, Hisaab Barabar, streaming on ZEE5 from January 24, is a comedy on banking scams. Madhavan plays a gentle, if parsimonious, ticketing inspector with the Indian Railways, a failed chartered accountant who sets to work unmasking a major fraud. “I’m embarrassed but I have six films releasing in the next two years,” Madhavan says. “That’s a step-up from doing just four in Hindi in the last 10 years.”

In a conversation with The Hindu, Madhavan spoke about his working philosophies, his disappointment with recent Hollywood films including Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, the strains on the average Indian taxpayer and more.

R Madhavan

A video recently went viral of you cheering for Ajith Kumar at the Michelin 24H Dubai. We can hear you saying, “I’m here as a fan…”

I am a huge fan of Ajith and what he’s achieved as a racer. In today’s world, where the need to survive and stay relevant in news is paramount, he can put his career on hold and follow his heart, his passion. And he does it with such grace, aplomb and beauty. Racing is his arena. I was cheering for him as a fan. I obviously did not want to hog the limelight. As they say in Hindi, ‘begani shaadi mein abdullah deewana.’ I did not want to be that.

It’s difficult to trace a pattern in your recent filmography. You have done three streaming shows of varying hues, a biopic, a horror film, a psychological thriller…

I will make it a little academic for you. In the 2000s, nobody believed Aamir Khan’s Lagaan will do well. Nobody thought Rang De Basanti would become an iconic film, or Guru or 3 Idiots or, a little later, Tanu Weds Manu. There was no pattern or formula these films were following. They were not residues of a previous success. However, they were all made with conviction and had a unified directorial vision. So my analysis was: find a subject you really connect with, and do it with bravado and conviction.

There was ‘Decoupled’ though…

When I heard the idea of Decoupled, I connected with it. I enjoyed making it too. But then came the release. Sarita (Birje, Madhavan’s wife) and I saw it together and she was like, “What the hell were you thinking?” It felt like game over for me. The show was in English. It was absurdly offensive. It’s not the kind of content people associated with me. But then I went for the promotions and the media was responding positively. I kid you not, world leaders have called me up and said, “How the hell did you know the story of my house?”

Filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap and Gautham Menon recently expressed disillusionment with their respective industries. Is mainstream Indian cinema at a stage of creative stagnation?

I am not entirely in tune with that. As a creative person, I have to question the motives behind a project. If those motives are not kosher, if they are laced with ulterior agendas, then you are going to face multiple issues. Great filmmakers were there in our country, they knew how to tell stories, they were extremely successful, and then they faded for whatever reason. The question is: how does someone like Clint Eastwood who is 94 continue to stay relevant and win Oscars? He too must have faced the same turmoils as us. Over a period of time, other actors and directors in India have managed to stay relevant. Look at Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajkumar Hirani, Rajamouli. I will take inspiration from them. As many stories are there of everything becoming corporatised, there are an equal amount of success stories.

Perhaps the concern is that our films have lost their handmade, organic quality.

Let me ask you this: How come the whole nation is a fan of K-pop today? How come Korean stars are more popular than Indian stars? That content is as real, as organic and as human as we can expect. It’s not bombastic at all. Shows like Squid Game and Money Heist: Korea have fans in India. So content is being made. Are you, as a filmmaker, so comfortable that you don’t want to break the mould and evolve over time? Are you taking your audience for granted? I have seen big directors get the Godfather syndrome, where they go on a set and feel like the Godfather. And yet, I have also seen someone like Rajamouli. I gave a screen test for him and even at this age he is enthusiastic like a child.

Have you watched many films in the New Year?

Boy, it’s only been 20 days. I saw one on the flight called The Count of Monte Cristo which I thought was blah. I hate to say it so blatantly but Hollywood of late has disappointed me a lot. I feel like they have lost the plot in many ways. Older films like The Shawshank Redemption, The Usual Suspects, A Beautiful Mind, As Good as It Gets…they stayed with us for so long. In the last five years, no movie has made the same impact on me. I saw the original Joker and thought it was a product of passion but the second one was terrible. I’m sorry but I didn’t see what it’s merit was.

I did not like Oppenheimer as well. Let me tell you why: a man has devised an atom bomb and in one flash it has killed more people than history has ever seen. It has destroyed a race and a culture for many years in that part of the world. Would you not show the impact of that on the man who invented it? For me, that was really important. I want to see how Oppenheimer felt the morning when he got the news… does he come out, pick up his newspaper and do his neighbours look at him like a villain? Does he feel happy or does he feel like a monster? Those are the emotional bits they did not want to touch. Maybe they were not comfortable with it or maybe they were unable to portray it. I am not going to give them the artistic high ground and call it subtle storytelling. Imagine making a film on Gandhi but skipping how he won us freedom.

You have spoken before about Indian films being measured with a Western yardstick

Indian filmmakers, including Anurag Kashyap and Gautham Menon, have made evolved films that need to be seen internationally. They need to continue to do that. We should not keep yardsticks of Western films as what we want to reach up to. I’ll give an example: there is a word in the English dictionary called ‘wailing’. When something tragic or unexpected happens, people in Asia wail. Actors in Western films do not know how to do it. That’s not called subtle acting. It’s a complete racial and cultural difference. Similarly, song-and-dance is an integral part of our culture. You cannot have an Indian function without songs. How can that be looked at and ridiculed?

‘All We Imagine as Light’, made by FTII alumnus Payal Kapadia, become a global sensation. As the current president of the institute, what has been your role in nurturing filmmaking talent?

I am extremely proud of Payal and all former students who have made a mark. I am not an administrator and I don’t run the day-to-day functioning of the institute. My role is to make sure that everything functions smoothly and we take the curricula to the next level. FTII, besides being the premier filmmaking institute of the country, is one of the greatest facilities available to film students around the world. A fact that hit me was that we spend 80 lacs of taxpayer’s money on a single student. My hope is that when somebody graduates from FTII, the industry should be waiting with bated breath to pick them up. They should be comparable to an IIT or IIM graduate. I am trying to bridge the gap to see how the dropout rates can be reduced, how we can reduce the length of the courses, make them more modern and in tune with evolving technologies.

A still from ‘Hisaab Barabar’

‘Hasaab Barabar’ is releasing ahead of the Union budget 2025 rollout. The Indian middle class is expecting relief from high and cumbersome taxation structures. Your take?

I do agree that it’s a little complicated. My co-star, Kirti Kulhari, made a good observation: why does the taxation process have to be such that a common man needs to hire a CA? It should be simplified to an extent that the common taxpayer doesn’t feel like he is making a mistake when filing his returns. Genuine middle-class folk don’t want to cut on tax. But don’t make it so complicated that they have to tiptoe around every detail. I believe that seriously.