Kamal Haasan, who is currently busy promoting Mani Ratnam's Thug Life, spoke to India Today about a missed opportunity.
The veteran actor revealed he almost got master filmmaker Satyajit Ray to score the background music of his 1987 silent film Pushpak Vimana, titled Pushpak in Hindi.
Kamal Haasan said, "We were on the very edge of contacting Mr Satyajit Ray to do music for Pushpak. We missed it and we still regret it. But then market pressures and we had to settle down and get the film done."
Besides being a legendary filmmaker, Satyajit Ray was also an author, a lyricist, a magazine editor, an illustrator, a calligrapher, and a composer. He composed the soundtrack of his films, including Charulata, Mahanagar, and Nayak.
Kamal Haasan said Satyajit Ray would have taken Pushpak to a whole new level.
"He would have advised us and the fact that he didn't know this was happening out of earshot and he mentions Pushpak is that it truly is a missed opportunity. He would have worked.
"We were thinking he 'could have', but he would have worked because of the way I heard him talk about that one scene in Pushpak. He would have liked it and we missed an opportunity. This industry is full of lost opportunities like that," the actor added.
Pushpak also starred Samir Khakhar, Tinu Anand, K S Ramesh, Amala, Farida Jalal, Pratap Potan, Lokanath, P L Narayana, and Ramya in key roles.
The film revolved around an unemployed graduate (Kamal Haasan) whose path crosses with a drunk rich man (Samir Khakhar) who is unconscious. Things go haywire when the graduate takes over the lifestyle of the drunk man after taking him prisoner.
Kamal Haasan is set to reunite with Ratnam with Thug Life, set to hit the theatres on June 5, 2025. They first worked together on gangster drama Nayakan, which released in 1987.
Thug Life also features Silambarasan, Trisha Krishnan, Abhirami, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Ashok Selvan, Joju George, Nassar, Ali Fazal, Pankaj Tripathi, Rohit Saraf, and Baburaj in key roles.