“Actors are the most important. Performance is what matters. Nothing matters more than the actors; they have to perform. No one else can give life to the characters. Audiences must believe the characters as real and the moments as real.”

Indian film director, producer and screenwriter

Mani Ratnam, born Gopalaratnam Subramaniam, is an Indian film director, producer, and screenwriter known for his work in Tamil cinema, with films also made in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. He belongs to the modern era of Indian cinema and has 99 quotes on the site. He is widely recognized for shaping commercially successful and influential films across several Indian languages. His career is closely associated with Tamil cinema, though his work extends beyond it. The available facts do not specify particular themes in his words, only his standing as a major figure in Indian filmmaking.