As soon as Kathir and Shahir enter the studio, it feels like they are straight out from Lingam sets.

However, we were taken by surprise when we meet Divyabharathi and Poornima Ravi, the female leads who also look their part from the series.

Kathir has juggled between performance-oriented films, offbeat series and commercial potboilers.

“Despite all these, I haven’t done anything like this before. That lured me into doing Lingam. When I heard the script of Lingam, I was excited but beyond that I was happy that the makers had faith in me that I could do this. Predominantly, people have seen me playing innocent characters, thanks to my looks. I also had to prove to them that I can pull off such roles. To do Lingam, I gave back the advance I had received for another film,” he says.

Divyabharathi was looking at Kathir’s face on where that iota of innocence is long gone and Kathir pulls her leg. “I was quietly listening to you when you spoke to Kathir. Now is my turn,” she says. “I have done movies which had me in pastoral looks. But when I was approached for Lingam, I asked myself if I could do the role with conviction in a series. It was more of experimentation and was a great learning curve in terms of looks and mannerisms. There are people who tend to stereotype a lot and I didn’t want to be typecast. I am proud of the industry I am in because I was able to explore and every actor now has the scope to experiment,” she adds.