Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse: Gautham Vasudev Menon on how Mammootty went from actor only to producer too

Two decades after he first approached Malayalam superstar Mammootty for a collaboration, director Gautham Vasudev Menon got to direct him in the mystery thriller Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse.

As a director, Gautham Vasudev Menon's first collaboration with Mammootty is Dominic and the Ladies' Purse

In his younger days, filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon admits that his awareness of Malayalam superstar Mammootty’s body of work was limited. Growing up in Chennai, he had only seen a few films like Oru CBI Diary Kurippu, August 1, and New Delhi, until he was introduced to more by his Malayali collegemates.

Sometime in 2005 is when he got to meet Mammootty for the first time to narrate a subject, which Gautham explains was similar to Vettaiyadu Vilaiyaadu, but didn’t take off at that point. As an admirer of Mammootty’s work and what he does on screen, the filmmaker got a second opportunity to broach the possibility of a collaboration almost two decades later.

Dominic And The Ladies' Purse trailer OUT: Mammootty dons the detective hat for Gautham Vasudev Menon's comedy thriller

Talking about how he came to work with Mammootty on Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse on the Madan Gowri podcast, Gautham said that even though he had acted with the superstar in Bazooka recently, he had not brought up the topic. “In fact, on the set of Bazooka, which was being shot in sync sound, he gave me a class on working with live sound. It was after we’d wrapped Bazooka that I came across a story from a Malayalam writer that I quite liked and thought would be a great fit for Mammootty sir,” he said.

Dominic and the Ladies' Purse: After a 2-hour narration, Mammootty was on board

The team was not confident about Mammootty agreeing to be on board and were all set to approach other actors, but Gautham wanted to at least try reaching out to the former before looking at options. “Within a day of my first text message to his team that I wanted to narrate a story, I was asked to meet him. We had a two-hour discussion about the subject, at the end of which he asked me who the producer was. I told him that I have a team and would get an investor onboard and returned to Chennai, as he said he would revert later in the day whether he was keen to do the film or not,” said Gautham.

Mammootty’s Dominic and The Ladies’ Purse is a comedy mystery à la The Pink Panther, Gokul Suresh reveals

To the filmmaker’s surprise, though, the very next morning, he got a call from Mammootty asking him to return to Kochi and go on floors immediately, as the actor wanted to produce it as well. “That’s how the film got done and is now set to release on January 23,” explained Gautham, adding, “It is a Malayalam film that will release everywhere. Mammootty sir is the hero and he will release it in a big way wherever Malayalam films have a market.

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