R Madhavan kickstarts promotions, revealing 'true' aspects of his film 'Rocketry: The Nambi Effect'

By Reena Bhardwaj
Washington [US], June 3 : Bollywood actor R Madhavan, kick starts promotions for his upcoming biographical drama film, 'Rocketry: The Nambi Effect', which premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and he has opened on certain aspects of the film, revealing that everything in it is 'absolutely true.'
Talking about striking a balance between fact and fiction in the film, Madhavan said, "This is one film where the cinematic liberties are at the minimum... It is only to crunch time, space, and characters together. Whatever you see in the film is absolutely true and what actually happened."
"This one, if truth be told, I had to take out facts, things that actually happened, I had to remove that from the story to make it believable. That's how incredible Mr Narayanan's story is. In fact, I think the only injustice that our film will do to Naryanan is not covering half or more than half of the achievements that this particular man has managed to achieve in his one spectacular lifetime." said the 'Tanu Weds Manu' actor.
Turning into a writer, director, and producer all at once for 'Rocketry,' Madhavan spoke that "After meeting Mr Nambi Narayanan I realized that there is very little chance that somebody else will understand Narayanan's achievement because he is such a profound rocket scientist."
Recalling his "biggest challenge as a writer", Madhavan said, "It is rocketry so it acquires people with a science background to understand the extent of his achievement. So I decided to write it myself. And my biggest challenge was to make Rocketry understandable to the common man and even if they didn't understand they should understand the impact of his achievements. That was my biggest challenge as a writer."
Turning into a producer for the much-anticipated film, Madhavan spoke "As a producer, I didn't find anybody else who I could trust for the production of such a story. Everybody was looking at my market and my ability to earn back the money spent on my film so that was not going to work for this film. We had to spend a lot more than what my market was worth."
However, he expressed his gratefulness for two of his partners who stood through thick and thin while making the film.
"I had two very good partners who stood by me throughout the Covid era without having to let go and give in to the urge of giving it on the OTT. So I am very grateful for their presence and my investors have been the best." added the actor.
In terms of acting, Madhavan revealed that "Acting, of course, I had to do because as an actor I had the urge to depict Mr Narayanan."
However, turning into the role of a director was an accidental event, according to Madhavan.
"Direction was not by choice. it was thrust upon me. It was a last-minute decision. The gentleman who was supposed to direct it could not for some reason direct the film and I had to jump in because the choice was either to drop the project or go hurtling into it without beliefs and convictions. That is a four-year-old story and right now we are sitting here and talking about a complete film, just days before the release. So we have been lucky on that front." said the actor.
Talking about releasing the film in three languages, notably, Tamil, Hindi, and English. Madhavan had an interesting response. He was even questioned why he sought to spend such a large sum of money on the film.
"I wanted to do the film in Hindi, English and Tamil. There were many people who felt that there was no need to do the film in English and...in Hindi because he (Narayanan) was a south Indian scientist. I knew right away that they didn't know what the story is all about. The reason I did it in English is because it is the most common language that the film is actually happened in, in the sense that Mr Narayanan was in Princeton, the first IVY League scientist from India."
"He was in France, in Russia, in Scotland. So it's the most truthful language to make the film in. Secondly, when Hollywood makes films like Apollo 13 or Steve Jobs we believe that it is true because that's truly the achievement of the scientist...India also has its set of technicians and world-renowned scientists as well as top of the world CEOs. We need to make stories about these people as well," added Madhavan.
"We have done so many movies and stories about our achievements during the freedom struggle as well as the Mughal invasion but we haven't made films about Aryanhata, or about our innumerable rocket scientists and their achievements. So I thought we should start educating the world about the kind of people who also contribute from and to India and let them know about our heroic achievements," concluded the actor.
Nambi is a former ISRO scientist and aerospace engineer who was caught in the throes of a spy scandal and was falsely accused of espionage.
'Rocketry: The Nambi Effect' is set to hit the theatres on July 1, 2022. Phyllis Logan, Vincent Riotta, Ron Donachie, Simran, Rajit Kapur, Ravi Raghavendra, Misha Ghoshal, Gulshan Grover, Karthik Kumar and Dinesh Prabhakar are also a part of the film.
Madhavan's directorial debut will also see special appearances by superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Suriya.