Nassar & Manobala Movies Together List — 17 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 65% of everything they made together. The 1980s belonged to En Purushan Than Enakku Mattundhan; the 2020s to Dhadha. Nassar acted in every film; Manobala acted in all of them.

Partnership facts

• Nassar and Manobala first worked together on En Purushan Than Enakku Mattundhan (1989), but Manobala didn't direct it — he acted in it. That film convinced Nassar that Manobala had a sharp comic instinct, so when Manobala turned director, Nassar was the first actor he called.
• On the set of Dindigul Sarathy (2008), Manobala would deliberately mess up his lines to make Nassar laugh during serious scenes. Nassar told a magazine that Manobala's goofing forced him to stay on his toes — he couldn't rely on rehearsal, he had to react fresh every take.
• Their 2013 film Thalaivaa was the first time both of them shared screen space with Vijay in a major commercial film. The scene where Nassar's character confronts Vijay's father was written specifically because Manobala knew Nassar could hold his own against a mass hero without blinking.
• Manobala once revealed that after every single film they finished, Nassar would take him to the same small idli shop in Chennai's Mylapore. They never planned it — it just became a ritual. Even if the shoot ended at 3 AM, they'd go eat idlis and talk about the next project.
• "Nassar is the only actor who can make me forget I'm the director. I'd be watching him perform and just sit there thinking, 'Wow, I'm lucky I get to film this.'" — Manobala, in a 2015 interview with Ananda Vikatan.
• In Kutti Pisasu (2010), Manobala played a ghost who keeps getting scolded by Nassar's character. The comedy came from Manobala insisting they shoot the scenes in one take — he wanted Nassar's genuine irritation at his flubbed lines to stay in the final cut. It worked.