CHENNAI: Actor Dhanush on Thursday conveyed his apologies for unintentionally hurting the sentiments of the Gounder community, in his latest film Uthamaputhiran. He also announced that those controversial dialogues in the film would be removed in a few days’ time.
On Tuesday, a pro-Gounder outfit staged a protest in cinema theatres in Coimbatore where the film was being screened. Following these protests, screening of the movie was stopped in over 80 theatres in the State, including in Salem, Trichy and Madurai. The film was released in 240 screens across the state.
“Not screening the film in theatres would cause a loss of several crores. It is not our intention to hurt anyone and so, we have decided to edit those controversial scenes, dialogues from the film,” clarified the actor, at a hurriedly convened meeting on Thursday, along with the movie’s director Mithran Jawahar and producer Mohan Appa Rao. “The controversial dialogues were informal exchanges within a family in a humourous way, and were not aimed at hurting anyone. The total footage to be removed would amount to less than two and a half minutes,” the actor said. The changes were already made in digital prints, but the others would take a few days, he clarified.