The Janus-faced Nutty
Nutty (Nataraja Subramaniam, the cinematographer of films such as ‘Black
Friday’, ‘Parineeta’ and ‘Eklavya’) is on to his second movie as actor. He
has been enjoying the best of both worlds: he is an acclaimed cameraman in
Mumbai and is on his way to establishing himself as an actor in Tamil films.
His first film as an actor, ‘Naalai’ (Tomorrow), was released last year, and
had a decent run at the box office. This gave him enough confidence to get
in front of the camera again. But with ‘Chakravyuham’, he is taking on
another role — that of executive producer.
‘Chakravyuham’ also heralds the entry of Sree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision, who
produced Rohit Shetty’s ‘Golmaal’ and Priyadarshan’s ‘Bhaagam Bhaag’, into
the Tamil film industry.
The movie is directed by buddy Mahesh (complete name Udayabhanu Maheswaran),
who had earlier debuted with ‘Naalai.’ Mahesh has worked with Shoojit Sarkar
earlier, and was one of the writers of the much-acclaimed ‘Yahaan.’
I had asked Mahesh if I could come to see the shooting, and he said I was
more than welcome. On Sunday, I made my way to the shooting location, very
close to the Marina Beach, in Santhome.
Nutty, though he had no shots for the day, was also around, thanks to his
Nataraj Arts being the executive producer. ‘Chakravyuham’ revolves around
three main characters played by Nutty, Malayalam actor Jayasurya and heroine
Daisy Bopanna, he told me. The camera is being handled by Dwaraknath, who
did Cheran’s ‘Autograph’ and ‘Mayakannadi’ earlier, and the music is by
Karthik Raja, who provided the score for ‘Naalai’ too.
Daisy Bopanna, who has acted in Priyadarshan’s ‘Garam Masala’ and the
Kannada movies ‘Rama Bhama Shyama’, ‘Aishwarya’ and ‘Thavarina Siri’, is
playing a girl who works in a call centre. The scenes being shot on Sunday
were of her arriving to work and having her lunch in the canteen, where a
colleague tries hitting on her.
As Mahesh was busy canning the shots, I got chatting with Nutty and asked
him about his forthcoming projects. “I have just finished Rajkumar
Santoshi’s ‘Halla Bol’ [starring Ajay Devgan and Vidya Balam] and Imitiaz
Ali’s tentatively-titled ‘Dono Mile Is Tarah’ [starring Kareena Kapoor and
Shahid Kapoor]. I am also committed to doing Santoshi’s ‘Ramayan’,” he said.
But what about Tamil films? He has shot only one till date — the
Vijay-starrer ‘Youth.’ “I keep getting offers but I keep refusing them as I
am already committed to other projects. After I came to Chennai for the
launch of ‘Chakravyuham’, I was offered a couple of movies but I turned them
down due to lack of time.”
“Actually, I had to turn down Pradeep Sarkar’s ‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’
also, and he is very mad at me for that. He keeps cursing me,” he said.
So what is ‘Chakravyuham’ all about, I asked. “I play a cab driver,
Jayasurya a cop and Daisy a girl working in a call centre. Actually, the
story is the hero of the film. I am sure the story, written by Mahesh, will
bring in the crowds into the theatres. I can’t say anything more; ask
Mahesh,” he said with a large smile.
Mahesh had canned the other shots and the close-ups by then. But before I
could glean some information from him, he had to leave because of a family
emergency.
The unit will leave to Kolkata next month to shoot some important scenes
there, but some more shooting is also scheduled in Chennai. So hopefully, I
will get some time to chat up Mahesh and get some more information about the
movie.
PHOTO ALBUM
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Venky, thanks for this amazing coverage…
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eeyah nuttygaru, yumma.. i lorve you saar.. aalll the best my male J LO.. guys do you know nutty has the best male ass in the business.. he is the man who taught me yall i knowww
wow.. an actor AND cinematographer :o talk about a rare combo to come by.. would love to know if knowing one craft has helped him in the other and if so, how.. venky, please do ask him if you get a chance, and thanks for this! also tell him he can happily pass along the projects he can’t do my way ;)
East or West, Devgan is the BEST!
Anurag “i love you saar” its sound like one of the female character of kushwant singh “company of women”.:d:d
i’m so happy to see the details of “CHAKRAVIYUGAM” and its album. i’ proud n much obliged to say that i’m a part of this passionate gang of film lovers. god bless the project and wish us “all the very BEST” love you all.
remember him in black friday…that passing shot. told my other cinema fanatic friends about it n proved that i know much more than them. ;-) many of them had no clue. Now will pass on this info as well.
Hey Venky, thnx. short n sweet post.
Does he still has his cielo? Nutty, I am sure now you can afford a merc, please get rid of that katara!
hi venky your report is superb. Very interesting and made happy, especially photo comments. its different. thank u