The 2nd season of Manoj Bajpayee-Samantha Akkineni starrer ‘The Family Man’ is a hot-favourite on people’s binge-watching list in June.
Another iconic character from the show – Chellam Sir has become the latest meme fodder. ‘Kids Google It, Legends Chellam It!’
Played by Uday Mahesh (Udhayabhanu Maheswaran), Chellam Sir is shown as the highly intelligent yet paranoid retired officer from the National Investigation Agency (NIA). He helps out the TASC (Threat Analysis and Surveillance Cell) members, especially Srikant, by appearing at the right place with the right info.
But did you know, the legendary character was ALMOST played by someone else? One of the creators of the show – Raj Nidimoru (the other is Krishna DK) revealed a fun fact about the casting.
As per HT report, during the Clubhouse session ‘Inside The Writers’ Room – The Family Man’, Raj elaborated on how another actor was cast but ‘it wasn’t working out.’
“A fun fact that I don’t think many people know is that we actually cast another actor and we shot for a bit. Not even shot, we were preparing to shoot, and it just wasn’t working out. Not working out because he was not well. Poor guy was just not in good health. He didn’t know what was going on… I think he hadn’t been acting for a very, very long time, so it just didn’t work out. We felt very bad and didn’t know what to do. Even he said, ‘excuse me’, because he was just not there at all,” he said.
He further added – “So, then, we scrambled to find a guy and we even thought for a brief second, ‘Why don’t we make Suman (Kumar, writer) Chellam?’ Because he likes Chellam so much. Suman actually got ready, he got a haircut and everything, and then DK vetoed him out. He said, ‘No way he looks like Chellam!’ Then we got the real Chellam!”
And the rest is history, and we get to enjoy the viral memes.
Talking about Udhayabhanu Maheswaran, the veteran actor has acted in movies like ‘Madras Cafe’, ‘Thanga Magan’, ‘Kabali’, ‘Nerkonda Paarvai’, ‘Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadithaal’ and ‘Serious Men’.
