Mammootty has won three National Film Awards in the best actor category. (Photo Credits: Instagram)
Mammootty has worked in over 400 films across different languages.
There is hardly any actor from the Malayalam cinema who is as well known as Mammootty. The veteran actor has worked in over 400 films across languages. He is the recipient of three National Film Awards and more than 10 Filmfare Awards. In his career spanning five decades, Mammootty has done genre-defying films like Christopher, Kaathal – The Core, Kaazcha and more. Mammootty, whose real name is Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail, is fondly known as Mammookka, a portmanteau for Mammootty and Ikka (Big Brother).
The 72-year-old actor recently appeared in an interview with Khalid Al Ameri, a famous Emirati YouTuber. When Khalid asked him when he plans to retire from films, the 72-year-old actor said that he intends to work for a long time. He said, “I don’t feel exhausted. It (quitting) will be my last breath.”
This prompts Khalid to ask Mammootty how he wants to be remembered by his fans. Mammootty answered this question in a philosophical and humble way and said, “But how long will they remember me? One year? Ten years? Fifteen years? Don’t expect people to remember you till the end of the world.”
He added that only a select few people are remembered for long and said, “Only very few people are remembered. I am one among thousands of actors. How can they remember me for more than a year? There’s no hope for that. Once you are not in the world, how will you know about you? Everybody thinks that they are going to be remembered till the end of the world. No.”
This answer prompted a slew of fans to disagree with Mammootty after Khalid posted this clip on his Instagram account. The clip got over 5.6 lakh likes in less than a day. Commenting on it, an Instagram user wrote, “I’m 28 years old now. If someone from my generation lives for 70-80 years, they will definitely tell their grandchildren that Mammookka was our pride. A man who can do fight scenes at the age of 73, man with 3 national awards for the best actor. We were so lucky to watch him.”
Despite being a septuagenarian Mammootty has continued working on films. Just this year he has released films like Abraham Ozler, Bramayugam and Turbo. He will later be seen in Deeno Dennis’s directorial debut Bazooka and Ranjith’s Kadugannawa Oru Yatra.
