The First Class Man is about the mathematical genius' friendship with G.H. Hardy

Roger Spottiswoode, best known for his James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, is working on a movie on mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan starring Rang De Basanti actor Siddharth.

Spottiswoode, who is part of the international competition jury of the Mumbai Film Festival, said the film was not a biography of Ramanujan who died at the young age of 32. It will rather deal with his friendship with G.H. Hardy, the man who first spotted his talent in Cambridge.

Titled The First Class Man, the film's scripting has been completed and shooting is being planned from next year.

“We are putting the finance together, hoping to shoot next year. One of my friends recommended Rang De Basanti and Siddharth was brilliant in that. He came to England and loved the script,” Spottiswoode told PTI.

Focus on friendship

He said the film would capture the unusual friendship between Hardy and Ramanujan and he is looking forward to find an Indian producer.

“Hardy thought that Ramanujan could be brilliant and as it turned out the young Indian was more talented than him. They collaborated for four years and wrote wonderful papers. It was a wonderful friendship between the two because Ramanujan was deeply spiritual while Hardy was only interested in cricket and mathematics,” the director says.

“An American writer found Ramanujan and wrote a play about him for 10 years. He showed me the draft and I became interested. He wrote a script on it, which later won a prize at Tribeca for best script about science. We have nurtured it,” he says.

Talking about the title, Spottiswoode recalled a famous anecdote.

“When Ramanujan arrived in England, Hardy introduced him to Cambridge with a nice speech and called him ‘The First Class Man' and Ramanujan later thanked Hardy, saying ‘You are a first class man.' My film is more like King's Speech,” he says.