Kamal Haasan on collaborating with Mani Ratnam: 'We're both children of cinema'

Kamal Haasan's much-anticipated Thug Life marks the actor and director Mani Ratnam's reunion after 38 years since their hit outing, Nayakan. While they have been associated for over three decades, Kamal Haasan revealed that there is always another layer of challenge when collaborating with the noted filmmaker.

"Every film is a challenge, especially when you add another director like Mani Ratnam and a story that is so interesting. Fortunately, he included me in the story's preparation. I gave him an idea. Most of the time I was getting vegetables and helping him make it more tasty. That's what I did," said Kamal Haasan. He further added that they only consider themselves as "children of cinema".

Earlier, during the press conference of Thug Life in Delhi, Kamal said that he was a happy child like a "parrot" who was not "caged". He called himself lucky to become a "star" despite being surrounded by many talented and intelligent children during his theatre days.

"I was a happy child. I was a parrot, not cage, but they taught me, and I repeated. It's only after 7 when I joined the theatre and all that, I realised that so many intelligent children, and I've been lucky to have become a star. That's when I actually started learning outside of school," said Kamal Haasan.

Apart from Kamal Haasan, Thug Life also stars Silambarasan, Trisha, Ashok Selvan, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Joju George, Abhirami, Nassar, Mahesh Manjrekar, Tanikella Bharani, Vadivukkarasi, Chinni Jayanth, Vaiyapuri, Bagavathi Perumal, Baburaj, Ali Fazal, Rohit Saraf, Arjun Chidambaram, Chetan, and Rajashri Deshpande.

The technical crew of Thug Life features cinematographer Ravi K Chandran, music director AR Rahman, editor Sreekar Prasad and action directors Anbariv. The film is a co-production between Udhayanidhi's Red Giant Movies, Kamal Haasan's Raaj Kamal Film International, and Mani Ratnam's Madras Talkies.