Gautham Vasudev Menon on Mammootty's Journey: From Actor to Producer in 'Dominic and the Ladies' Purse'

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Back in the day, filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon confesses that he didn’t know much about the legendary Malayalam actor Mammootty. Growing up in Chennai, he had only caught a glimpse of a few movies like Oru CBI Diary Kurippu, August 1, and New Delhi, until his Malayali friends in college opened his eyes to more of Mammootty's films.

In 2005, he first met Mammootty to pitch a story that Gautham felt was kind of in the same vein as Vettaiyadu Vilaiyaadu, but it didn’t really go anywhere at that time. As a big fan of Mammootty’s performances, Gautham got another chance to discuss a potential project nearly twenty years later.

While chatting on the Madan Gowri podcast about how he ended up working with Mammootty on Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, Gautham mentioned that even though he had recently acted alongside the superstar in Bazooka, he hadn’t brought up the idea then. “Actually, during the filming of Bazooka, which was done with live sound, he taught me a lot about working with that setup. It was only after we finished Bazooka that I stumbled upon a story from a Malayalam writer that I really liked and thought would be perfect for Mammootty sir,” he shared.

Dominic and the Ladies' Purse: After two hours of storytelling, Mammootty was fully engaged

The team was pretty unsure if Mammootty would be interested in joining them, so they were ready to consider other actors. However, Gautham felt it was worth a shot to reach out to Mammootty first. “Just a day after I sent a text to his team saying I wanted to share a story, I got a request to meet him. We ended up chatting for two hours about the project, and at the end, he asked who the producer was. I mentioned that I had a team and would find an investor, then headed back to Chennai. He said he’d let me know later that day if he was interested in the film,” Gautham shared.

The filmmaker was taken aback when, the very next morning, he received a call from Mammootty urging him to come back to Kochi and start shooting right away since the actor wanted to take on the production role too. “That’s how the project came together, and it’s now scheduled to hit theaters on January 23,” Gautham shared, adding, “It’s a Malayalam film that will be available everywhere. Mammootty sir is the lead, and he’s going to promote it heavily in all the places where Malayalam films are popular.”

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