“For the first schedule of my first film, I had put together flow charts, budgets and cashflows for the project. At the end of the week, I tore it all up.”

“While ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’ and ‘Dil Se’ were about issues that are very personal to us, ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’ had to have an outsider’s perspective. Hence, the Lankan situation worked better as a backdrop to the main story of the little girl.”

“I am very much a commercial film-maker. While I have been trying to move towards making movies without songs, if you take away songs, my movies just won’t be the same. Songs play many roles – they depict emotion, reach a peak or simply, give a pause in the story. However, if the script is worked well, one can make movies without songs. ‘Kurudhip Punal’ is one such example.”

“Both Ilayaraja and A.R.Rahman are brilliant composers, and I’m lucky to have worked with both of them. They are opposites in terms of style and the way they operate, notwithstanding the fact that one works in the day and the other works at night!”

“An actor is the most important person – he/she takes the character, hitherto envisaged on paper, forward, adding that little extra in the process.”

“Giving a title for a film, is like naming a child. It stays through the process of the development of the script, sometimes, even defining the look of the film.”

“Converting a novel to a screenplay is as difficult as, if not more difficult than writing a fresh script. As film writing is not taken seriously, there is a dearth of writers who can do this in the industry.”

“I depend a lot on my cinematographers. The relationship between a director and a cinematographer, is like a marriage.”

It was the audience’s turn to ask the questions, and they ranged from ‘Are you a communist?’ to ‘When is your next movie with Kamal Hassan?’ to ‘When do you incorporate songs – during or after writing the script?’ to ‘Will you make a songless film?’.

Actors Surya, Madhavan, Cinematographer/Filmmaker P.C. Sriram, and Keerthana of ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’ fame, all turned up to say a few words about the experience of working in a ‘Mani Ratnam Film’.

Surya: “The heroes in a Mani Ratnam film are always shown as intelligent. I’ve always been an average student right though school and college, and I’m glad I was depicted as one of his intelligent heroes. In fact, for the scene in Aydha Ezhuthu, where I’m supposed to take a class for my classmates in a jail cell, I had to mug up the equations for half a day!”

Madhavan: “I got a message on my answering machine when I was told to come for a screen test for ‘Alaipayudhe’. I still have that message and will play it to my grandkids!”

P.C. Shriram: “Working in Mani’s films, one can go berserk. We both push ourselves to see the unknown film after film, and are yet to see it. He’s open to trying new things, and he’ll get the best out of you.”