There wouldn't be any directors in Mollywood, who wouldn't want to have Mammootty in their movie. Director Lal Jose revealed in an interview that there was this one incident in his life in which he went against the grain and rejected Mammootty's offer to work in his movie. Th incident happened years ago when Lal Jose was assisting Kamal and had accompanied Mammootty for the dubbing of 'Azhakiya Ravanan'. They got talking and Lal Jose revealed his plans of his directorial debut.

Later, during the shooting of 'Udyanapalakan', Mammootty expressed his desire to work with him in his debut movie. But the director refused outright, which shocked Mammootty and the actor warning that he would never act in his movies. Mammootty did act in Lal Jose movies later. Lal Jose explains that he did not want to cast a superstar of his stature in his debut movie, since the burden of responsibility to deliver a hit was huge. However, the debut movie 'Oru Maravathoor Kanavu' did do well.