Kamal Haasan completes fifty years in Indian cinema

Chennai, Aug 18 (ANI): Actor Kamal Haasan spoke to the media here last evening on completing fifty years in Indian cinema and having acted in over 150 films in different Indian languages.

Getting nostalgic about his early days, Haasan said it was director Balachandran who made him realise his potential as an actor.

"There was my friend Ashish Shakti who believed in me as much as my family would believe me and kept insisting that I had something in me that was special but he made me believe it that I could act.

I did not believe in it at all. So that's him and I didn't believe him till Balachandran seconded his opinion. So he saw seconded opinion and I started believing in something called semblance of talent in Kamal Hassan," he said.

He, however, lamented the fact that Indian cinema has not really made global impact.

"I'm not saying that given a chance I could have been there (Hollywood). But given a chance, Indian cinema would have been where Hollywood is. There are so many reasons I don't blame any Indian group for having done in justice to Indian cinema," said Haasan.

He made his cinematic debut in 1959 with the film 'Kalaththoor Kannamma' when he was only five.

He won the best child actor National Award for his performance in that film.

Hassan has also won national awards for the films 'Moondram Pirai' (1982), 'Nayakan' (1987) and 'Indian' (1996). In 1988, he won the Best Actor Filmfare Award for the silent film 'Pushpak'.

He also has the distinction of being an actor with the most number of films submitted by India for the Academy Award in Best Foreign Language Film category.

Hasan's last hit as a director was 'Chachi 420', a remake of the popular Hollywood movie 'Mrs. Doubtfire'. One of his projects 'Ladies Only' is yet to see the light of day. (ANI)