Words matter. These are the best Madras Quotes from famous people such as Catherine Tresa, Satyajit Ray, Suhasini Maniratnam, Raashi Khanna, Angad Bedi, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
For more reasons than one, my first film in Kollywood, ‘Madras,’ will stay with me forever.
Sometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can’t leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.
In Queen Mary’s, which was an all-girls’ college, I learned discipline, hard work and to be competitive. But at Madras Film Institute, I learned about the world, being free and knowledgeable, and thinking beyond oneself.
I did ‘Madras’ because of the script, which was compelling.
Radha Krishna Sir, the director of ‘Jil,’ had seen ‘Madras Cafe’ and liked my acting in it. He wanted a performer and so got me on board.
In Shoojit’s films, there is no hero and villain. Every character has its own space and there is a social message in all of his films whether it is ‘Vicky Donor’ or ‘Madras Cafe.’
The first time I visited Chennai was in 2013, July, I think. I came here to meet the director of my first Tamil film, Pa Ranjith for ‘Madras.’ We did a test shoot and I left the same evening. I didn’t get to explore the city much at that time.
My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.
Chennai has changed a lot. I knew Adyar as a village which has now become the heart of the metropolis. But my heart still beats for the old Madras.
I have seen many festival films and I will be blunt, I don’t think ‘Madras Cafe’ was ready for festivals.
Whether that was in the Chepauk Stadium in Madras or at the Ilford Cricket School, there was a daily diet of cricket run by my dad. It was a hard school but he knew what he was doing. Everything I achieved was down to my dad.
I have been receiving calls from all quarters since the release of ‘Madras.’ I need to thank audiences for believing in me and making this film successful.
‘Vicky Donor’ or ‘Madras Caf,’ John’s films have been path-breaking. I have full faith in the script of my movie, and my director, too, is a debutante. I like the conviction with which they work, and that gives me a lot of confidence.
I did not make any specific statement in ‘Madras’ and did what the character demanded. ‘Kanithan’ was an entirely new concept that needed the glamour quotient.
It is easier to make a film but difficult to make it on your own terms. In that sense ‘Madras Cafe’ was a very satisfying experience.
The double hundred Fowler hit in the Madras Test was an absolute beauty.
None in the ‘Madras’ team knew what to expect. We were just sure that we were making a good film.
‘Madras Cafe’ is set against the backdrop of the civil war in Sri Lanka in the 1990s.
Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.
Maybe Carnatic music will become more digital, because it is an audio form. But even then, why do people flock to the December season in Madras? Because they want to see the artiste face-to-face.
I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.
As offers came pouring in from the Telugu industry, I had to discontinue my studies and I shifted base to Madras in 1974.
