I’m not directing Ash: Mrs Mani Ratnam

Suhasini Mani Ratnam is thrilled that her next Sandalwood outing, Eradane Maduve, will see her doing what she loves best: comedy. “People who are close me know I have a funny side.
Vishnu (the late Vishnuvardhan) was one of those people. He was also great at comedy. Though we might have been doing a serious shot on screen, we behaved like clowns off it,” says Suhasini.
And though she worked on several films with Sahasa Simha, she regrets the one project they didn’t get around to doing together.“Vishnu wanted me to direct a Kannada film, which he was supposed to produce. He wanted me to be in London for a 60-day shoot, but I couldn’t do it at the time. Turning down that offer is something I still regret,” says the actress.
She maintains, though, that she still loves doing Kannada films — she’s making a special appearance in Deadly Soma 2, and has a substantial role in Sanju Weds Geetha. “Not many people know that I turned down my husband’s first directorial, the Kannada film Pallavi Anupallavi, something he still hasn’t forgiven me for,” reveals Suhasini. And she thoroughly enjoyed working on Eradane Maduve because it gave her scope to improvise her dialogues. “There were some comic scenes, in which I used to ad lib, which made the scenes even funnier. But my director, Dinesh Babu, didn’t want me to be the film’s dialogue writer just yet. ‘I have another film for which I’ll take you on as a dialogue writer. For now I want you to act’, he said,” she laughs, adding that she’s also dubbing for the Telugu version of Eradane Maduve.
Suhasini did, however, write the dialogues for Raavanan and, as a result, got very close to Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. The grapevine has it that she directing a film starring Ash. “I’ve known Aishwarya since Iruvar because I was her dialogue coach for the film. I’ve heard the reports about me directing a film with her, but they’re not true. I haven’t even given it a thought because I’m very busy with my NGO work,” she explains.
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