Mangaluru: A press meet was held by the cast of ‘Mr Johnny’, an upcoming Kannada film, at hotel Ocean Pearl, here on August 11.
Addressing the mediapersons, prominent Telugu star Suman Talwar said, “This is the second time that I have come to Mangaluru, I visited this place 8 years back.” Even though he hasn’t been to Mangaluru in a long time and rarely speaks Tulu, Suman Talwar had no difficulty in addressing the gathering in Tulu. Talwar will be shooting for the upcoming Kannada movie, ‘Mr Johnny’. The shooting will be wrapped up in Mangaluru on August 18.
Speaking on his early life, Suman Talwar said that he was born in Mangaluru and was brought up in Chennai. In the 38 years of his acting career, he has starred in many films in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and English languages and will complete 400 by this November. “This is my 38th year in the film industry. I didn’t expect this because other than taking part in fancy dress competitions, I didn’t know how to act. I am working with the 3rd generation of actors now. I’m very happy and fortunate, and I’m still going strong.”
Praising Tamil superstar Rajnikanth, he said that Rajnikanth supported and encouraged him a lot through his career and give his sincere thanks to him. “He is like a godfather, god-brother to me.” Also admiring Akshay Kumar, he said that due to Akshay’s recommendation, he received more scope for performance. “These are two people among the actors who promoted me.”
He also said about talks of a very good proposal from Hollywood. He had acted in the Hollywood movie Death and Taxis.
Expressing the need for development of the Tulu film industry, he said that the industry is lacking in terms of budget and story quality. “The present Tulu film industry is lagging; we cannot compete with other languages.” If the standards of production style and quality of the Tulu film industry increases, then he would be interested to produce Tulu films, he said. “Karnataka is one of the most sweetest states in the country because we have many languages like Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Beary, Coorgi and yet we are all united in one state. Some states are divided even though they have the same language. We need to develop and strengthen all the languages in the state. I request the CM and the Kannada film industry to help in highlighting all other languages too because when our languages are strengthened, our unity will only increase.” He said that if the quality of films in the region were upto the mark, he would be open to also acting in Tulu, Konkani films.
“Today’s audience also looks into the reviews and worth of films before watching them. It doesn’t matter if the cast is well-known or not, as long as the story, concept of the movie is good, people will watch it,” he added.
Kannada actor Vijay Raghavendra also spoke on the occasion.