The ‘Jigarthanda Double X’ filmmaker on his writing process, working with big stars, and picking the right actors for his scripts.
Edited excerpts:
Writing based on a hero’s availability
It’s not possible for me, and it’s not a good thing. Even with Petta, I already had the story ready and even after that, I took some time to finish the bound script. Only after thalaivar (Rajinikanth) read the bound script that he felt that it was ready that we were good to go. Working in a time constraint (with certain stars) might affect the output because if you’re going to a shoot without completing the proper script, there is a chance of it going wrong.
Working with big and small stars
One good thing about big stars is that they only do one film at a time so definitely they are completely available for the film you’re approaching them with. The challenge is, for example, at the time we shot the Jigarthanda sequel, SJ Suryah sir was doing three films (Game Changer, Mark Antony are the others) parallely. And even Lawrence sir was shooting Chandramukhi 2 and Rudhran parallely. That’s the only pressure because I expect my actors to be in my film at least till the shoot is completed, at least the main leads. That’s the better choice.
Casting actors based on the requirements of the script
Petta was the only script that I wrote for the actor. I was in that zone of being a fan who wants to see the actor in a certain way and did that in the movie. But at the same time I was very particular about the script having a good story. I had received some critical feedback about the second half from certain corners and there were some who said the first half is a thalaivar padam and second half is a Karthik Subbaraj padam. But I would say the second half is where the story properly begins, whereas the first half was more of celebrating thalaivar.
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