With the uncertainty lifted over the release of director Shankar’s I , starring actor Vikram, the focus has shifted to the film, which is expected to get a massive release countrywide.
Vikram has spent nearly three years for this film, where he would appear in four looks: a body builder, beast, model, and a hunchback. Coming at the back of his poor run at the box office, the actor seems to be betting high on I .
The actor is confident that the film will break the language barrier and be talked about throughout the country. “This is a film which will be appreciated by pan-Indian audience. I could sense it even when I was doing the film,” he said talking to journalists at a luxury hotel here on Monday.
Speaking of his second collaboration with filmmaker Shankar, he says: “Anniyan was fairly an uncomplicated, linear film while ‘I’ is not. Shankar can make a film completely out of what we think is his comfort zone. Working with him for the second time, I learned that his yearning for perfection hasn’t waned. It is not about how much money he is given to make a film. It is about what a filmmaker can do. It is not about thinking of 200 elephants instead of 20. It is about thinking out of box.”
Vikram was unwilling to say too much about what the film is about, except that he plays the role of a body builder and the film is about what happens to him. “The plot is the hero of the film.” However, he revealed how he difficult it was to prepare himself for each of his roles. “I had to follow a tough regimen to transform myself into all of these roles,” he says.
For instance, he spoke about a specific scene in which he had to strike bodybuilding poses. “Posing is a tough art. Fifteen minutes of posing onstage is tough and drains all the energy. Since it was for a scene, it had to be done again and again. I ate small quantities of chicken and rice, drank thick black coffee. I pulled every muscle in my body,” he says.
Next, he had to become a model for which he had to become slim and look dashing. “I had to lose all my fat and look slim, which meant that I had to work out regularly as I could easily put on fat around my waist. At the same, I also had to look fresh and good,” he says.
Apart from this, he reduced his body weight to 56 kg, losing fat drastically and had to put on prosthetic make up for close to five hours. “Five hours for beast character. We shot for the entire day. I have shot for 17 hours. During the course of the filming, I developed severe rashes prompting even actor Santhanam to mistake it for make-up,” he says.
Did he ever feel that he was needlessly pushing himself so hard? “Commercial cinema has changed today. Commercial films also require a good dose of realism. ‘I’ is a step in that direction.”
