![\"26](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/26-Years-of-Hey-Ram.jpeg\" "\\"26")
<\/p>\nThe failure of Hey Ram really impacted you?
It didn\u2019t work anywhere. Critics were kind, but Hey Ram was a commercial disaster. It was so edge-of-the-seat that audiences slipped out of their seats and out of the theatres (laughs). Even when I was making it, people asked me what the hell I was doing. Such expenses for what? I said it was a promise I made to myself. Like a spouse and a house.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
26 Years of Hey Ram: Kamal Haasan reflects on his most personal failure<\/p>\n
Did it put you in the red?
Yes, I was in financial soup. It could\u2019ve gone either way. It went the unsuccessful way, which wasn\u2019t very convenient financially. One producer forced me to cut down my remuneration at the last minute. But as an actor, I\u2019ve no complaints. I\u2019m one of the highest-paid actors in the country. Thanks to my brother, Chandra Haasan, who looks into my tax matters, I have zero tax arrears. That leaves me with no surplus funds for Swiss bank accounts at all. But I sleep very peacefully at night. When I hear the thud of boots down my corridor, I don\u2019t cringe in fear. You can call it virtuous stupidity. But it\u2019s a comfortable life.<\/p>\n
They even said you were self-indulgent in Hey Ram?
That\u2019s because the publicity in Mumbai made them feel there was much more of Shah Rukh Khan in the film. Okay, Javed Akhtar saab is a good writer. He wrote Seeta Aur Geeta. Tell me, how many scenes are there in it without one or the other Hema Malini ji except when the villain growls on screen?<\/p>\n
Historicals seldom work?
Just because my Hey Ram or Rajkumar Santoshi\u2019s The Legend of Bhagat Singh failed, let\u2019s not question the audience\u2019s appetite for history. Didn\u2019t Sohrab Modi make many successful historicals? Maybe they were hyperbolic. But what\u2019s wrong with that? History, after a point, becomes mythologised. It\u2019s in our blood. I\u2019m happy for Aamir\u2019s star power. \u201cKamal Haasan the Star\u201d always genuflects before Kamal Haasan the Filmmaker, who warns the star to be careful. The director is the star though the actor won\u2019t always admit it.<\/p>\n
Which among your directorials are you most proud of?
Hey Ram. A German scholar has opened a website where he reviewed Hey Ram along with Guru Dutt\u2019s Pyaasa. He believes the two films are in the same league. Our Hey Ram went wrong with the audience. I\u2019m not angry with them for rejecting it. When people call it a great film now, it doesn\u2019t make much sense. It was like Guru Dutt\u2019s Kagaz Ke Phool. Not enough people went to see Hey Ram.<\/p>\n
Also Read: After the release of the Hindi track \u2018O Pari\u2019, Rockstar DSP launches its Tamil version \u2018O Penne\u2019 with Kamal Hassan and Telugu version \u2018O Pilla\u2019 with Nagarjuna<\/a><\/p>\n More Pages: Hey! Ram Box Office Collection<\/a> Catch us for latest Bollywood News<\/a>, New Bollywood Movies<\/a> update, Box office collection<\/a>, New Movies Release <\/a>, Bollywood News Hindi<\/a>, Entertainment News<\/a>, Bollywood Live News Today<\/a> & Upcoming Movies 2026<\/a> and stay updated with latest hindi movies only on Bollywood Hungama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The failure of Hey Ram really impacted you?It didn\u2019t work anywhere. Critics were kind, but Hey Ram was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,82854,146,2664,82855,150506,85,46,53795,5523,60046],"class_list":{"0":"post-297199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-down-the-memory-lane","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-features","12":"tag-flashback","13":"tag-hey-ram","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-javed-akhtar","17":"tag-kamal-haasan","18":"tag-throwback"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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