It’s been almost a year and a half since Suriya’s previous film, Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (TSK), released in theatres. And for the past few months, he has been busy juggling between the sets of two of his upcoming films - Selvaraghavan’s NGK and KV Anand’s Kaappaan.
Right now, all eyes are on his latest political drama, NGK (Nanda Gopal Krishna), in which he plays the role of a young man who is unknowingly pulled into the political landscape and is about how he maneuvers his way in that space.
Ahead of the film’s release, Suriya spoke to the media in Hyderabad about the process of shooting on a Selvaraghavan set and how the director pushed him into a different space which he wasn’t used to. Excerpts below:
Your collaboration with Selvaraghavan was waiting to happen. Isn’t it? Have you been planning to work with him for a while now?
Absolutely! I’m a huge fan of Selvaraghavan’s work and I’ve been waiting since 2001 to work with him, but it so happened that Karthi got to work with him first (for Aayirathil Oruvan) (laughs). Dream Warrior Pictures, which produced NGK, had an interesting line-up of films, and it was a conscious decision by them to make a film with Selva and me.
A lot of people keep telling me that for the first 10 years of my career, my films were quite intense and gritty, and then in the recent past, I have been associated with larger-than-life and entertaining films. I guess, they wanted me to be part of an intense film again, which is why NGK feels like the right choice for me at this point in my career.
We had a set of four scripts to choose from, but what made NGK so interesting for all of us was its unpredictability. It doesn’t follow a pattern, and you wouldn’t know how the characters are going to progress or behave at any given point.
The last time one of your films dealt with politics was back in 2004 (Ayutha Ezhuthu). What was going through your mind when you took up a film like NGK after such a long gap?
Be it Shankar’s Mudhalvan or Mahesh Babu’s Bharat Ane Nenu, political dramas have been received well. And each film has explored the political landscape from a different perspective.
I felt that Selvaraghavan was trying to explore a new layer in this genre. The core idea behind the film is that if you are silent when you see something bad happen around you, then you also become part of the problem.
This is the story of a normal person from a small town who finds his own path once he’s sucked into the political world. The film also explores if you’ll be a change-maker no matter what the odds are. We did a lot of research about politics at a grassroots level, but we didn’t use any of them as references. NGK is not based on any political party or an individual. Besides, the intensity of politics changes at every level, right from the village to the state level. There’s a certain universality to the subject, and I’m confident that it’ll resonate with the audience too. It’s not rocket science.
Did your views on politics coincide with what Selvaraghavan wanted to say through the film? Or did you have to find a common ground?
NGK is not treated as a biopic. We do want to give a cinematic experience to the viewers. It’s got a nice balance of what people expect from me and you’ll also see Selvaraghavan’s raw, gritty, and intense treatment to the subject. It's still a Selva film. I connected a lot with the dialogues in the film, especially in the climax.
In most of my films, I would try to be both morally and ethically right. But in NGK, there’s a little shift from that approach. The character I play is manipulative and behaves differently with different people on purpose. He doesn’t feel the need to be always right.
How did he change you as an actor, considering that he has an unique approach to working with actors and filmmaking itself?
I don’t know if I can be Nanda Gopal Krishna, again. Selva writes the story, screenplay all by himself, and he alone tells everyone how he wants a scene to look and feel, even in terms of cinematography and performances. He is also a gifted actor and a dancer. It’s rare to find someone who can do all this, and still deliver unique films over such a long period of time. People might say that he hasn’t given a hit, but that’s not the point. Some people are very unique and you can’t write them off. There’s no one like him. He can make even a non-actor act.
Being on his set and working with him is almost like going to an ashram. There are no mobile phones, no chit-chat, no distractions of any kind. Everyone has to be in a meditative zone and be focused all the time. Usually, when I’m done with my shot, I can switch off and switch on easily. But in his film, right from start to cut, I had to be fully focused and be in that emotion.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this zone. You have to feel that emotion all the time. And it’s the same with every other actor on the set. I come from Bala sir’s school, and he has an unique approach to filmmaking. After a long time, I’ve experienced something like that, thanks to NGK.
A lot of actors, who’ve worked with Selvaraghavan say that it’s almost like going to a film school once again. Would you agree to that?
Totally! It’s amazing to see how he interprets a character. Prior to the shoot, I might have read the script 4-5 times, but he told me to not memorise the dialogues. I might have a rhythm when it comes to delivering my dialogues, but he doesn’t want it at all. He would say, “I don’t want you to start your dialogues with this emotion”. So, he places you in a different zone which you are not used to.
For me, it was a different experience. It’s really hard to prepare in advance when you work with him, because the kind of emotions that he wants the actors to portray are different in every sense. In a way, every scene needed a new approach. He is a taskmaster. There have been days when he would try to extract what he wants from you the whole day, and if you don’t get it right, he would continue the same process the next day. It’s not that he’s trying to prove a point or that his way is the only right way. In his heart, he has a lot of discipline. He’s directing everyone including a junior artiste in the background.
For him, the frame must be perfect. He doesn’t like to compromise. He doesn’t want anyone to look into the camera, because he thinks it would make it look like a film. Every shot is usually played 4-5 times on the monitor because he wants to make sure everything is perfect, right from how we blink our eyes to camera movement. An okay take was a big relief for us (laughs).
Recently, your co-stars, Sai Pallavi and Rakul Preet, said that Selvaraghavan doesn’t like the actors blink during a scene. Was it true in your case too? What else did you have to do consciously?
Every actor and director wants their films and performances to be unique. Some ask you to breathe normally when you are saying your dialogues, but some don’t like that casual approach. Raghuvaran (actor) used to tell me - “Don’t wait for your line...cut me and talk, because that’s how normal people talk”. Bala sir used to insist that an actor shouldn’t blink unnecessarily or tilt his or her head. Take any director, the body language of actors is different in each of their films. Selvaraghavan believes that if you blink unnecessarily, you will end up cutting the emotion short.
Actors emote through their eyes. When you blink, your emotion drops, and it takes more effort to bring it to the same level again. Bala sir likes his actors to keep their lips a little more open because it makes them look alive, but on the other hand, Selvaraghavan wants the actors' lips to be pursed. You have to adapt yourself to each of their styles. They have been around for more than 20 years; they have a certain style of working, and people like their films for what they are. Every director’s craft is different. It’s all about going and surrendering yourself, and wanting to do better.
Was the whole process quite exhausting?
I’ll tell you something....most of the actors wouldn’t like to admit this, but when you shoot a film, there’ll always be a safety shot which will camouflage your flaws. If you don’t do something right, the frame cuts to someone else in the scene. This is why we end up shooting so much - there’s a master shot, a close up, a profile, and close up of another actor in the frame.
In Selvaraghavan’s films, there’s no escape shot. The whole shot has only one lens and one magnification. If it’s a 2-min shot, the camera is rolling only on you. It’s almost like doing theatre.
Is your stardom restricting you from taking risks or doing a certain kind of cinema because people have high expectations from you?
I don’t want to get into that zone. That’s the reason why I wanted to produce films, and production is an extension of the kind of films which I want to do and be associated with. I don’t want people to think that I can only do certain kind of films. I have always said this and I’ll say it again - I’m Saravanan. It’s the name given to me by my parents. And I’m Suriya on screen. Suriya is a brand for me, and Saravanan works for Suriya. It’s how I see myself.