CHENNAI: For Fahadh Faasil, the distinction between playing a hero or villain is less important than how a character fits into the larger story. In the Telugu-Malayalam fantasy film Don’t Trouble The Trouble which releases today, the actor plays a character who has to be cunning and fraudulent while still remaining likeable to the audience a balance he says was more challenging than playing an eccentric character like he did in Aavesham.

“Doing a normal performance is actually more difficult. That is the challenge. Doing something like Aavesham is very easy for me. I can do Aavesham. But I don’t enjoy doing that all the time. There’s no point in just doing Aavesham alone,” he said, during an interaction with select media.

Fahadh's character in Don’t Trouble The Trouble, he explained, demanded something different. “This character was challenging for me because I have to be a fraud, I have to be cunning, but at the same time, I have to be human and make sure the audience likes me. In Aavesham, there was no need for that," he added.

Fahadh said he does not approach a character purely through the lens of whether it is positive or negative. “What matters is how the character is structured within the film. How it falls in a film is the most important thing. Sometimes, it might be a very small role, also.” He cited Shammi from Kumbalangi Nights as a character that took considerable effort to crack. “That role was very difficult. We kept trying to crack it. We took time and worked on it.”

The actor also revealed that he particularly enjoyed shooting Don’t Trouble The Trouble in real locations. While live-location shoots are common in Kerala, filming in Hyderabad presented its own challenges, particularly with crowd control. “On the first two days, there was an issue because crowd control wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. But then we had a plan, and the production had a plan, and everything was controlled. We shot on the main roads. We shot during peak hours and at midnight. So, it was a totally new and different experience for me," he added.

The film also gave Fahadh the opportunity to work with child actor Ssara Palekar. When asked whether working with a child actor was tricky, he responded with a laugh: “I have one at home (referring to actor-wife Nazriya Nazim). But Ssara was really good. She is by far the best co-star I ever had.”

The project also received support from Kamal Haasan, Nandamuri Balakrishna and Mohanlal, who agreed to be associated with the trailer. Fahadh said the team was surprised by how readily they agreed. “There was no delay in saying yes. It was an immediate yes.” The experience also made him think about giving back to the fraternity. “I told Karthikeya (producer SS Karthikeya) also, ‘Bro, I think I have to start doing this, because that’s how you give it back, right?’”

The conversation then inevitably turned to his father, actor-director Fazil, who has a strong association with Tamil cinema. Fahadh revealed that he has been waiting for a script from him. “I asked him for a script some five years ago. He hasn’t given me one.”

Fazil, he added, was among the first to predict the success of Fahadh’s recent production, Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, which has crossed the Rs 300-crore mark. “My father is watching all the films. He’s enjoying them. He’s guiding us through," Fahadh added. When asked which Tamil character he would like to play in a Malayalam remake, Fahadh immediately picked Vijayan from Mahendran’s Mullum Malarum (1978).

Coming to the production side, producer SS Karthikeya discussed the extensive preparation behind the film’s fantasy elements. The production spent around eight months preparing the VFX before shooting began, locking the visual language, character looks and effects in advance. This also helped control costs, as knowing the number and complexity of shots beforehand allowed the team to negotiate with CG companies and make practical changes during production.

The film was shot in Telugu, with the team also working extensively on the Tamil and Malayalam versions. “I hope people won’t be able to tell which language the film was originally shot in. We tried to perfect it to that extent,” Karthikeya said.

AI was also used during pre-production, particularly to communicate visual ideas to artists, he revealed. “If there is an idea in our director’s mind or our mind that we are unable to communicate to an artist, it becomes easier to quickly create something using AI and show them, ‘This is what we are looking at.’ But that is only at the idea-level.” For Fahadh, however, all the technical work ultimately comes down to the same thing making sure the character and the film work together as a whole.

The Don’t Trouble The Trouble team recently held a pre-release event in Hyderabad, which was attended by actor Suriya, filmmaker SS Rajamouli and producer Ishari K Ganesh, along with the cast and crew.

The film releases in theaters on October 2.