Santhanam & M. Rajesh Movies Together List — 5 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 80% of everything they made together. The 2000s belonged to Siva Manasula Sakthi; the 2010s to Boss Engira Bhaskaran. Santhanam acted in every film; M. Rajesh directed all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Rajesh cast Santhanam as the lead in 'Boss Engira Bhaskaran' (2010) after seeing him steal scenes as a sidekick. It was Santhanam's first film as a solo hero, and Rajesh bet his entire script on a comedian carrying the film.
• On the sets of 'Oru Kal Oru Kannadi' (2012), Rajesh would write only a rough scene outline. Santhanam would then improvise entire stretches of dialogue in real time, and Rajesh would rewrite the next day's scenes around whatever Santhanam had just made up.
• The success of 'Boss Engira Bhaskaran' directly launched a mini-genre in Tamil cinema: the comedian-turned-hero rom-com. Without this film, you probably wouldn't have had Santhanam's later solo hits like 'Dharma Durai' or 'Kanna Laddu Thinna Aasaiya'.
• Rajesh and Santhanam had a standing rule: no matter how badly a scene went, they would never raise their voices at each other. Instead, they'd walk away, smoke a cigarette together in silence, and then come back and reshoot.
• Santhanam once said in an interview: 'Rajesh is the only director who lets me be the villain, the hero, and the comedian in the same scene. Other directors put me in a box. He burns the box.'
• In 'All in All Azhagu Raja' (2013), Rajesh deliberately wrote a character that was 70% Santhanam's real personality — impulsive, loud, and easily offended. He told Santhanam: 'Just be yourself, but turn the volume up by 10.' That film's comedy beats are almost entirely Santhanam's natural reactions.