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D. R. Nanayakkara

D. R. Nanayakkara built a screen career around characters who could be imposing, morally compromised or quietly unsettling. Born in Kolonnawa on March 15, 1915, he first found his way toward acting through the theatre. As a young man, he regularly attended stage plays, and around 1936 he was noticed at a performance by playwright Sirisena Wimalaweera, who invited him to join his troupe. Nanayakkara was later cast as Saranapala in Wimalaweera’s play Amma. That role began a long association with the playwright, with appearances in productions including Seedevi, Pitisara Kella, Rodi Kella and Maggona Charlie. When Wimalaweera adapted Amma for the screen in 1949, Nanayakkara made his film debut and also sang two songs. He continued appearing in Wimalaweera’s films until the filmmaker’s death in 1963. One of Nanayakkara’s most celebrated performances came in Lester James Peries’s Rekawa in 1956. As Sooty, the young protagonist’s thieving father, he played a man who tries to profit from his son’s supposed healing powers, with devastating consequences. The role established the kind of difficult, threatening presence he would bring to later films such as Kurulu Bedda, Sikuru Tharuwa and Binaramali. His range was not limited to supporting villainy. Nanayakkara won the Sarasaviya Best Actor Award for Bicycle Hora in 1968 and played the title role in Kathuru Muwath in 1971. He also took major parts in K. A. W. Perera films including Kapatikama, Duleeka, Lasanda and Nedeyo. Reuniting with Peries for Baddegama in 1981, he delivered another major negative role as the Medicine Man. International audiences may recognize him as the elderly village shaman in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, released in 1984. It was a compact but important story role, sending Indiana Jones toward Pankot Palace in search of the village’s stolen sacred stone. Nanayakkara died in 1989. His final film, Ahas Maliga, reached screens five years later.