Addinath Kothare has grown up around film sets, but the part that places him in one of Indian cinema’s most closely watched productions was not, he says, a gift of lineage. The National Award-winning actor will play Bharat in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana, and he traces the casting back to a habit that sounds almost old-fashioned: he kept turning up for auditions.
The shortlist that stayed on the radar
“I got Ramayana because I used to keep auditioning,” Kothare said in an interview with Rediff.com. He first auditioned for Tiwari’s Tarla, was shortlisted, and believes that early visibility kept him in the director’s mind. Ashwini Iyer Tiwari also saw his work before casting him in System.
Kothare’s explanation is uncomplicated. “The only thing that gets you work is your work,” he said, adding that growth is a lonely process and that success feels earned because of it.
Why the casting logic matters
The account is worth hearing because Ramayana is being read as a test of scale for Hindi cinema, and every casting choice invites the lineage conversation. Kothare comes from a filmmaking family and still describes the route to a marquee role as an audition trail. That is a different, more grounded framing than the usual talk of inherited access.
The milestones and the Marathi cinema argument
Kothare named Paani, his National Award-winning directorial debut, as his biggest game-changer. From there, he said, the ball started rolling: ’83, Criminal Justice, City of Dreams, and now Nayyi Navelli and Ramayana, which he called new milestones.
He also pushed back on the idea that Hindi cinema is crowding Marathi films out of theatres. The real test, he argued, is performance:
- Marathi films such as Shivaji, Tighi and Kranti Jyoti Vidyalaya are setting box-office milestones.
- The sector is finding wider horizons and Oscar attention.
- Theatre owners back films that perform, because it is a business.
For actors in a low patch, his example is to make something of your own. He returned to directing with Paani when he was unhappy with the work coming in, and he links that decision to the bigger offers that followed. The Ramayana set, he added, was a “surreal experience”, and the working culture of Tiwari, Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi, Yash and Ravie Dubey was inspiring to observe at close quarters.
Source: Rediff.com
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