We all know that The universal star and The Complete actor Mohanlal had made his debut in Mollywood as a villain in the film named Manjil Virinja Pookkal which is a classic now. The flick was conceived by debutant director Fazil and it was indeed a debut film of many people. Manjil Virinja Pookkal was the debut film of actor Shankar as well in Malayalam even though he had acted tamil films before. Actress Poornnima Jayaram’s debut in Malayalam was also happens to be in this classic film. Shankar was the hero of this film and Poornnima was the heroine. Our Mohanlal played the young villain in it. The film was a great success and a sort of trendsetter with this new star cast.
Actress Poornnima Jayaram (now Poornnima Bhagyaraj) now remembers about her memories about Mohanlal when she saw him first at the sets of Manjil Virinja Pookkal in the beginning of the 1980’s. Recently In an interview with Nana magazine she told that when she came to Mollywood for acting in this movie she was very unfamiliar with people here. She said as she came from Bombay she had always seen handsome heroes and heroines all around. By that standard of beauty or glamour she cannot even able to accept Mohanlal as an actor or she can’t imagine like that at all at that time.
But Poornnima says that what caught her attention about him was his acting skills. Mohanlal is unbelievably natural in his acting that no one can even think for a second that he was acting in front of the camera. Poornnima said if she has to say anyone as natural as him in Indian cinema she will say there will be only Nasurudeen Shah who has great naturality in his acting.
Poornnima later married to Tamil director Bhagyaraj and went to Chennai. Shankar also acted in many films as hero and later faded away from Mollywood. But Mohanlal has become a hero from villain and later he is grown in such a rapid pace that within 5 years he become a super star and become the most valuable star in our industry. And the fact is that still he is continues to be the biggest star, biggest crowd puller and the best actor in our industry and may be the greatest and finest ever Indian cinema has ever seen on silver screen.