Acclaimed actor JD Chakravarthy has opened up about his long-time collaboration with filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, sharing that the director once confessed he regretted killing Chakravarthy’s character in the cult gangster film Satya (1998). In a recent interview, JD Chakravarthy opened up on how the film Satya was a milestone in his career.
JD Chakravarthy on RGV’s creative introspection
Reflecting on Satya’s recent re-release, Chakravarthy told Screen, “I’m glad Satya was re-released, not just for audiences to experience it in its full glory, but because it gave Ramu Ji a chance to reconnect with himself creatively. I’ve been associated with him since Shiva, and we still talk regularly. Recently, he told me the biggest mistake in Satya was killing my character. He believes the story should have ended with him being sent to Dubai along with Vidya, rather than dying. I disagreed, of course, but he feels the ending could have been different.”The actor added that Varma feels nobody will now agree with this alternate ending because the film’s climax has become iconic. “He also said that now nobody will agree with him that the ending should have been different, as the film has become a cult classic,” Chakravarthy noted, acknowledging that Satya remains a turning point in his career. Satya is a landmark 1998 Indian crime drama film directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. The film is widely regarded as a defining moment in Indian cinema for its gritty portrayal of the Mumbai underworld and its realistic storytelling, which broke away from the commercial formula of the time. It featured JD Chakravarthy as Satya, Manoj Bajpayee as Bhiku Mhatre, Urmila Matondkar as Vidya, Saurabh Shukla as Kallu Mama, followed by Shefali Shah, Aditya Shrivastava, Govind Namdev, and Paresh Rawal in supporting roles.
