It’s really shocking and sometimes surprising to hear that an actor loses out on a state award only due to his good looks more than his acting skills. Our Megastar Mammootty is the victim of this fate which has happened twice and the latest one being the losing out of this year’s state award. This year Mammootty gave a great performance in the film named Munnariyippu helmed by Venu and written by Unni R. In the flick financed by Ranjith, Mammootty played a character named Raghavan who is a prisoner for more than 14 years.
Mammootty was in the race for the awards but he got out from the race in the second round itself and the jury is of the opinion that even though Mammootty had done well as the character, his good looks had conquered against him as they finds out that a prisoner will not have such good looks. Strange finding by the jury indeed. Many people ridiculed this decision by jury saying that they only looked at the skin colour of Raghavan more than the performance of the actor as that character. The writer of the film Unni R also came against the jury saying that if good looks of the character is the reason behind not giving Mammootty the award then he does not want that kind of awards.
But the surprising fact is that this was not the first time Mammootty losing a state award due to this same reason. The same happened in 1991. It was in the film directed by Bharathan were Mammootty played the role of a fisherman and gave a sterling performance. The movie name was Amaram. But he lost out to Mohanlal in the state awards that time. That time also jury said that his good looks had made the character of that fisherman unrealistic even though he gave a good performance.
Mohanlal had given a fabulous performance in that year with the movie like Abhimanyu, Kilukkam and Ulladakkam and won the award for showing the natural and versatile side of acting. But that time Mammootty’s rejection did not create much controversies as he lost out to Mohanlal who gave a sterling performance. But this time it had created a great controversy as the best actor award was given to actors like Nivin Pauly and Sudev nair who is not much known as great actors when compared to Mammootty.
