The producers of Balloon have written to the Producer’s Council, seeking a payment of Rs 1.5 crore from Jai, the film’s lead actor for the losses he caused.
The producers, K Nandakumar and TN Arun Balaji, wrote to the Producers' Council, stating that Jai’s unprofessional conduct caused them mental distress as well as monetary loss.
Sinish Sreedharan, the film’s director, posted the complaint on Twitter.
— SinisH (@sinish_s) January 4, 2018
In their letter, the producers allege that the film’s release, which they had originally for January 2017, had to be postponed to December primarily because of Jai.
“Jai didn’t give proper dates for the film, he didn’t come for shooting, he didn’t cooperate with us,” they wrote.
They decided to release the film in September 2017, but then alleged that Jai did not show up for dubbing his parts either, causing them a lot of distress.
“Actor Jai does not possess the qualities of hard work, caring about one’s work, respect, discipline, keeping one’s word. From the shooting spot to dubbing, Jai’s torture made the director suicidal when we were shooting in Kodaikanal. Other artistes were witness to this along with us,” they wrote in the letter.
The producers said that they had planned to shoot in Kodaikanal for 20 days, and had built sets worth lakhs of rupees.
“We were waiting for him for a month. We could not contact him over the phone or in person,” they alleged.
They go on to add that Jai turned up for the shoot in September. However, in October, the producers say that Jai left the sets after saying that Anjali, the female lead, was suffering from epileptic fits. Later, upon investigating, they claim that no such thing had happened and that Anjali had nothing to do with the lie.
They allege that Jai leaving the shoot midway had caused losses worth lakhs of rupees.
About his alleged unprofessional conduct, they wrote, “Every day, he would come drunk to the location. As soon as he came, he would only be thinking of when we would pack up for the day and when he could go back to his hotel room and drink. He never paid any attention to his acting. Every time, he would take over an hour to come out of the vanity van. If we planned to shoot for eight hours, it would be a struggle to shoot with him even for four hours.”
While thanking the cast and crew for staying on till the end despite “Jai’s torture”, they demanded that Jai immediately settle loss of Rs 1.5cr that they incurred. Nandakumar and Arun asked that the Producers’ Council help them in this regard, and have also asked the Producers’ Council to ensure that Jai does not act in films until they are compensated.
Actor Jai has previously been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.