Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha re-release: Mammootty played Chathiyan Chandu only because it was MT Vasudevan Nair’s script

In the medieval classic ballads of northern Kerala, the famed warrior Chandu Chekavar was depicted as a cheat, earning him the moniker, Chathiyan Chandu. So, when producer PV Gangadharan approached Mammootty and told him that he wanted him to play Chandu in a cinematic adaptation of the ballad to tell the story from Unniyarcha’s perspective, the actor’s immediate reaction was that he would have to play the villain, and was, hence, hesitated to take it up.

But within moments came the clincher – the film was to be based on a script by the late MT Vasudevan Nair and directed by Hariharan. Mammootty reminisced about this in a special interview for the film’s re-release on February 7, in conversation with Ramesh Pisharody. In MT’s story, Chandu is not the villain and is, portrayed as a good man. Was Mammootty surprised by this twist in the tale?

“In cinema, there will always be two sets of characters – author-backed ones and those that are not. Some characters will be good in the story itself, while others will be the kind that people tend to dislike. The story of Unniyarcha, Aromal Chekavar and Chandu is one such. Over the years, we have heard and seen it several times and, in that tale, Chathiyan Chandu is described as a wretched person. But all of this has always been from the perspective of Aromal or Unniyarcha. Why not, then, present a story from Chandu’s viewpoint and how he perceives the situations in his life? MT must have explored this to understand who Chandu really was, which, in turn, resulted in the white-washing of the character,” explains Mammotty, who earned a National Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Chandu.

Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha also stars Suresh Gopi, Madhavi, Geetha, Balan K Nair, Captain Raju, Devan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, among many others. MT Vasudevan Nair won a National Award for Best Screenplay for the film.