The Greatest of All Time or The GOAT, the penultimate film of Vijay’s acting career, is currently causing a sensation in the South as it gears up for release on September 5. Almost all the tickets for the opening day have already sold out, and the film is expected to end the rough box office patch Tamil cinema has been experiencing since the start of 2024. Amidst such growing expectations, Showsha caught up with Venkat Prabhu for a freewheeling chat about the film, Vijay, and more.
Venkat Prabhu, who has churned out blockbusters like Mankatha, Maanaadu, Chennai 28, and Goa, is confident that the film will entertain audiences in Tamil Nadu and beyond. He assures fans they are in for a surprise, which will reveal why Vijay’s Gandhi in GOAT is called a “Venkat Prabhu Hero.”
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
How does it feel to answer the same questions during this promotion?
It’s just the modulation, position, and tone that change because we’re doing the interviews at the same places too. It is a bit tough (laughs). It’s necessary to reach different sets of audiences across various platforms, but one should make sure that the answers are interesting for them, even though the answers are repeated.
Fun is the word that comes to mind when you think about Venkat Prabhu and his films. However, with growing anticipation and the Pan-India movement, is making films still fun for you?
Filmmaking will always be fun for me, or I will make sure it remains fun for me. The genres might be different, and now that we cater to a larger audience, we have to create something universal, not just something for Tamil audiences. It has to be enjoyed by audiences everywhere. When I came up with the idea, it was inherently universal. It’s like one of those espionage thrillers that we have seen—something audiences across India will enjoy watching. But when it comes to Pan-Indian cinema, as you call it, the action set pieces have to be grand. That’s why we went to Thailand, Russia, and Tunisia.
Vijay is known to be a taciturn person. Was it tough to work with him as you are left guessing what’s happening in his head?
But I talk a lot. I make sure that he talks to me. He is open to everybody. He talks about the scene and the character. He always ensures how other actors perform and how to improvise and keep up. I was initially scared of asking for one more from Vijay. However, after a shot, he will look at me to see if I am happy or smiling. If I am just thinking, he would say, ‘Venkat-uh… one more polam (let’s do one more)… one more polam.’ Even if I resist, he will insist. We started talking through our eyes, like a couple (laughs). You’ll see all of this in the output.
With Venkat Prabhu films, there are a lot of inside jokes that the Tamil audience will get. How will you make it work for everyone else? Even with the trailer, there is a change in the Telugu and Hindi versions.
Yes, some jokes are meant for the Tamil audience. About the trailer, yes, the Marudhamalai Maamuniyae song is from Vijay’s Ghilli, which Hindi and Telugu audiences wouldn’t have seen. So, we switched to Mission Impossible references in the trailer.
Talking about the film’s title, The Greatest of All Time, I was reminded of Jet Li’s The One (2001)…
Yeah, yeah. In that, the actor goes to all parallel universes and kills his other versions to become ‘the one’ (laughs). Nice line, yeah! Maybe, we should do it in the future. But I didn’t want to do science fiction, though this film has a small element of it. This is not a sci-fi film. I don’t know how the talk started. Maybe, when I shared the picture of Vijay Sir from the US with all the futuristic filmmaking technologies and I captioned it ‘Welcome to the future,’ I think everybody started thinking that it was sci-fi.
And you had just made Maanaadu, which was a sci-fi…
Yes, and I didn’t want to do another one again and be so predictable. As I have been told, GOAT is an espionage thriller about the character Gandhi, a Venkat Prabhu hero. You’ll know why he is called that when you see the film.
Mankatha (2011) was a trendsetter, which had an anti-hero for a hero. In this climate, where everyone is expected to be politically correct, can you make the film?
Yes! See GOAT, no? (laughs). You watch GOAT, and you will be in for a surprise. There’s a treat. No… I just can’t say anything right now. Wait for the film to release, and you’ll know.