Writer Sukhmani Sadana on working with R Madhavan for Rocketry: The Nambi Effect and its premiere at Cannes-Entertainment News , Firstpost
Sukhmani Sadana said that working with R. Madhavan on his directorial debut Rocketry: The Nambi Effect was a delightful experience.
Actor R Madhavan’s directorial debut Rocketry: The Nambi Effect was screened at the Cannes Film Market, and writer Sukhmani Sadana got overwhelmed by its reponse.
Madhavan plays the titular role in the film based on the life of Nambi Narayanan. The former scientist and aerospace engineer of Indian Space Research Organisation was accused of espionage.
On the film’s response at Cannes, Sadana says, “I was expecting this kind of a response from the global audience because the film applies to all sorts of emotions and nations. It’s a universal story. It’s about someone being treated wrong. But the 10-minute standing ovation that echoed in the auditorium was something that we’ll always remember. It was beautiful. It was all very overwhelming.”
She worked on the film as an additional screenplay and dialogues writer. “I have a small role. The film is all Maddy sir’s effort. It’s his brainchild. He has worked on this film more than any one of us. We wanted to show to the world that Mr Nambi Narayanan deserves justice,” says the writer, who wore a saree designed by Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla at Cannes.
Joining the writers’ team of the film was not a piece of cake. She met the Tanu Weds Manu actor at a meeting where she mentioned to him that she was a writer. When he started making Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, he asked her to write something for him to test her out. “I wrote a bunch of sample scenes for him. For a film like this you gotta prove that you have creative juices flowing in you,” she recalls. Well, she proved to him that she had it in her to be part of the film’s writers’ team.
Working with Madhavan was a “true delight” for her. “I cannot even begin to explain how much there is to learn from that man. He is an all-rounder. He is one of the best actors, directors and producers I have worked with. Just being in the same writers’ room with him, and understanding the way he brainstorms was a learning experience for a writer like me. I used to write for ads earlier. I moved to films very recently, so it was a great opportunity for me,” she tells Firstpost.
A lot of research went into it. “There is so much one needs to understand. I don’t even remember how many drafts we wrote for this. It was a long process. Maddy Sir is a fabulous teacher. It’s his first directorial and he has done a brilliant job,” she says while heaping praise on the actor.
Sadana is also an actress, having featured in projects like Apharan 2 and Dil Bekaraar. But she didn’t have any acting role in Rocketry: The Nambi Effect.
“I don’t feature in Rocketry, and I like it like that. In the projects that I write, I don’t like to act in them ideally because I feel like I lose perspective. I become too close to creating those characters,” she says.
Madhavan in Rocketry: The Nambi Effect
Her next, Udan Patolas, is an exception. “I have acted in it. It’s the only project which I have written and acted in, so I am very nervous to see it. The pressure is so much more on the writer because people will be like, ‘you created this character, you should nail it’. I am like, ‘it doesn’t work like that’.”
“It’s a web series, and writing a web series is absolutely a world of a difference from writing for a film because in a web series, you have to have multiple ends. Every episode has to end with a climax. In a movie, you have just one climax and one interval,” she explains.
The digital project is a comedy and fiction. “It was easier to write Udan Patolas because it was about four girls from a small city who moved to Mumbai which is exactly my life and it’s pure comedy. I think I am pretty good at that, so the punchlines came very easily to me,” says the writer with roots in Punjab.
On the other hand, Rocketry: The Nambi Effect was “so much about research and serious stuff”.
“Writing a real-life story can be challenging because you have to stay true to the essence in every way possible. The best way for us to work was to talk to Mr Nambi Narayanan as much as possible to understand where he is coming from, how he thinks, what he feels strongly about and what he does not feel right about. I think when you are writing a real life story, the only way to crack it is to get your research absolutely right. And of course to talk to the person as much as you can. You have to get into their skin. You have to become their shadow in every way possible. We stayed away from fiction. There were so many times when Maddy sir said that ‘let’s not do this because this is not true’. I really respect him for that,” she says.
The year 2022 started on a great note for her and she has many acting and writing projects lined up. Among various projects, she has a film that she has written along with Sultan director Ali Abbas Zafar. “It has Diljit Dosanjh acting in it. It’s going to be released sometime soon,” she shares.
Natalia Ningthoujam is a Manipur-based journalist. She knows how to smoothly switch from being a fan to a writer whenever needed. She tweets at @nattynick.
