Conversations with Mani Ratnam

by Baradwaj Rangan

In Nayakan, we’re just trying to look at what has been classified, very broadly, as bad, and trying to see if there’s anything inside it, and we’re trying to do this by exploring the life of the character. It is more difficult to make a movie about a pure hero—someone who is all white. That is unreal. That is a statue, an icon, and not a character. I think there are flaws in everybody, including the audience, and if you have a character that is flawed, there is something you identify with. He looks real because he has elements which are not perfect, and that’s true of 99 per cent of the people who live in this world. These characters don’t come from a comic book, someplace where people are only good and always do extraordinary things. Character flaws make a person more believable. When you say a person is bad, what is good in the bad person becomes the story. ‘He is a good guy, but …’ The but is the story. Without the but, we really have nothing.