Kamal Haasan & Venniradai Moorthy Movies Together List — 6 Films

The shape of the work

The 1970s belonged to Azhiyadha Kolangal; the 1990s to Michael Madana Kama Rajan. Kamal Haasan acted in every film; Venniradai Moorthy acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Moorthy was a trained Carnatic musician. During the shoot of 'Simla Special' (1982), he and Kamal would spend lunch breaks singing old Thyagaraja kritis together. The crew would just sit and listen. No one else joined in.
• Kamal Haasan personally requested Moorthy for the role of his father in 'Thangathile Vairam' (1975). Moorthy was a veteran stage actor, and Kamal insisted he bring that raw theatre energy to the screen. The director initially wanted a more commercial face.
• In 'Ullasa Paravaigal' (1980), Moorthy played Kamal's strict father. But on set, Moorthy would deliberately flub his lines to make Kamal laugh and break character. Kamal said that Moorthy's deadpan delivery was the only thing that could crack him up mid-scene.
• Their last film together, 'Naanum Oru Thozhilali' (1986), was a flop. But it directly inspired a young director named K. S. Ravikumar to cast Kamal and a veteran comedian as father-son in his later blockbuster 'Panchathanthiram' (2002). Ravikumar has said he wanted that same odd-couple warmth.
• Kamal once said about Moorthy: 'He never acted. He just stood there and let the camera catch his life. I learned more from his silences than from anyone's dialogues.' — from a 1990s interview with Ananda Vikatan.