‘Like Kattradhu Tamizh, Aadhar will be relevant even after a decade’

CHENNAI: After a sumptuous meal at a city hotel on a weekday afternoon, Aadhar team enters our office campus. People recognise Karunas, Riythvika and Ineya and approach them for a selfie. After acknowledging them they settle down for an interview with a huge smile on their faces. “One of our distributors called me this morning and said how the film impacted him and that he lost a night’s sleep after watching the movie and was heaping praises on the film,” begins Riythvika. Director Ramnath Palani Kumar is taken by surprise and tells Riythvika, “The distributor was on call with me until 4 am and was discussing various points which I believed would be thought-provoking. When he discussed those scenes with me, I felt overwhelmed.”

Karunas listens to them and says, “I have faith in such scripts. 15 years ago, I released Kattradhu Thamizh directed by Ram that went on to become a cult movie. It wasn’t profitable upon release. However, it ended up being one of the timeless films in Tamil cinema and established Ram as a frontline director even in his debut movie. Likewise, Aadhar is a film that deals with a relevant topic. A daily wager in a construction site named Pachamuthu, who loses his wife and registers a complaint with the police. What happens after that is the crux of the story. The movie may or may not have a huge opening like that of a star’s. But it will be spoken about by people even after 15 years. The producer of the movie, Sasikumar is based in Singapore. When he saw the film, he said that he is glad to have made a ‘respectable’ film like Aadhar.”

Ineya plays a character with different shades in the movie. “When the story is good, an actor doesn’t think too much about whether he/she plays a character with grey shades. I liked the script and my character takes the story forward and has a strong underlying message in it. To play this role, there was a lot of unlearning and learning that I had to do on the sets. I come from a strong theatrical background and that helped me to go about this role,” says Ineya.

Aadhar is Ramnath and Karunas’s third collaboration after Ambasamudhiram Ambani and Thirunaal. “Karunas and I go a long way personally and I give him feedback on his political ventures as well. If I am not pleased with something he does, I tell him honestly. I don’t mince words. That is how we built trust in each other,” says Ramnath. Karunas adds to his point and remarks, “Before Ambasamudhiram Ambani happened, people told me various things about Ramnath and his persona off the sets. I asked them to mind their business as my perception of this man was totally different and he has lived up to it till today.”

Karunas says that playing Pachamuthu had its own pros and cons. “One thing is that my face looks quite naive. So I didn’t have to transform on the sets to a great extent. However, I was in a grumpy zone until we wrapped up the shoot unlike Ineya who transforms in front of the camera. People thought I was an arrogant person. Only now they realise that is how I approach my characters,” he concludes as his colleagues reminisce and laugh.