He just wanted to know what kind of dialogues the character will have. It was SR Prabhu's idea to narrate it to Karthi and he liked it. But it morphed into a solid script at the end. With Kaithi, it was whacky at the beginning. Just because a star has stepped in, I will not add songs or a love story. Avaru idhu varaikkum ivlo pannirukkaaru, avara vechu idhellaam pannalaam nu onnu irukku. It is, for sure, an added responsibility. Do you look at this as an added responsibility? Even Kaithi's script, it is said, was tweaked after Karthi stepped in. When a star steps in, along come in the burden of expectations. But Dilli will be a new person, a fresh character. The film is a classic and they have created something that cannot be unseen. But the first day when he stepped out in costume, we could not but be reminded of Paruthiveeran (laughs). We put in a lot of effort to make Dilli (Karthi's character in Kaithi) unique. The last time we saw Karthi playing a villager was in Paruthiveeran. So when I suggested this, he also loved it, and we decided to go on with this idea. We know the actor that Karthi sir is we can achieve anything with him. This challenger extends to actors as well. For cinematographer Sathyan, it was a task to shoot in forests and give the night a different tone altogether. I could have chosen to show her but I felt that the project shouldn't just pose a challenge to me, but to everyone involved in the team. In Kaithi, it is said there is a strong influence by a female character but she does not seem to be shown. In Maanagaram, you never revealed the names of the main characters.
To tell the struggles of many characters in a way that the audience feels it, in two hours and thirty minutes, is a challenge. I want this to be a part of all my films, including Kaithi. This will happen only if the writing is potent. Now, I wouldn't have pondered much on their backstories, but the struggles they face should seem fair to the viewer who should empathise.
If you take Maanagaram, for example, it is a story that mostly happens over one night. We should feel it at every stage - on paper, during narration, while shooting, and finally, on screen.Īnother similarity between Kaithi and Maanagaram, at least from what we have seen is that the universe seems populated with many characters. Whenever I go to shoot or work on a film, the excitement the team and I feel about a project is crucial. But more than a genre or an idea, it is about what excites you. You have shared that you are an admirer of 'intense' films. When I discussed it with a few more people, I heard them going, 'Nalla irukku la?' That egged me to work on it. But by the end of the day, the story had become just a little bigger. I had seen the report and was just talking about it with my assistants. While one may come across several stories and ideas, what makes an idea worth expanding into a film? You have mentioned that the spark for Kaithi came from a newspaper clip. Imagine how precise we need to be about continuity. We shoot for 60-61 days to tell a story that happens in six hours. It might sound easy to write a story that unravels over a small duration, but in reality, it is tough. I guess writing and execution come more naturally to me in such stories. Perhaps we can call it your comfort zone? And we settled on Kaithi, a complete action film. I wanted to make a film that is in the same zone as Maanagaram, but in a different genre. But I chose this because this was right up my alley, while those scripts needed more work. I had earlier worked on two other scripts. I can't exactly say that it is what the story demands. Do you like writing stories that happen in restricted periods? Kaithi is a story that happens in the span of a single night. Maanagaram, your first film, was a story that happened over 48 hours.