R. Madhavan is currently gearing up for the release of his film Rocketry: The Nambi Effect. He will be seen as former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in it. The actor also makes his directorial debut with the film, which will hit screens on July 1. The actor answered a volley of queries during a recently held press conference.
Expressing his views on how Rocketry: The Nambi Effect happened, Madhavan shares, “After I finished the Tamil film Vikram Vedha, I was thinking which film to start with. At that time, somebody came to me and told me about Nambi Narayanan. This happened in 2016. He told me that he had an affair with a female from the Maldives, and they were caught as they had sold the Indian rocketry secret to Pakistan and thus jailed. But they managed to come out, and they proved that they were totally innocent. I decided to meet Nambi Narayanan at Thiruvananthapuram. I found the brightness and pain in his mind. His presence and aura made me feel there must have been something wrong. We can’t know him for this spy case. There is more to his persona. It took me seven months to write this script. He narrated more about his life story. He also narrated his flaws and revealed all his character flaws. Thus I was awed by his narration and decided to make this film.”
Adding about being different from other films, he quips, “We have shot this film in Hindi, English and Tamil and shot it in eight countries. All our artists spoke all the languages. We have shown a period of 50 years and shot live sound. The role I’m playing is shown from 29 to 72 years look. We have not used prosthetics.”
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan is a part of the film. “I narrated this story to Shah Rukh while we were shooting for Zero. He was elated after hearing it. I later met him on his birthday after the film was in production, and he expressed a desire to be a part of it, and he was serious about it. A few days later, his assistant got in touch with me, and things fell in place. Surprisingly, he didn’t charge anything and acted in English and Hindi versions of the film. And he did all this totally free,” Madhavan gushes.
Despite all the expectations from the film, Madhavan is not feeling any box office pressure.” I am not tensed at all but only have a relief that finally the film is releasing. If it works, it will be sone pe suhaga,” he concludes.
