Naanum Rowdydhaan is coming out in Telugu as Nenu Rowdy Ne (in a dubbed version) towards the end of January. Director Vignesh Shivan who as a writer is well known, has captured the imagination of the audiences in Hyderabad too. The film might not have been a big hit but it got a positive feedback for Vignesh, specially for his fresh treatment of the film. As a writer and director, this is Vignesh’s second film after Poda Podi . In a chat with MetroPlus , he says, wrapping up the film on time gave him a lot of satisfaction.
Pondicherry was central to the story. So one wonders if a remake would have added more value to the story. Vignesh explains, “I don't know Telugu, and even if they were to make it in a dubbed version, I really don’t know how audience would react. There are a lot of native elements and it is true that it cannot be recreated in a dubbed version. It has to be remade with another place in focus instead of Pondicherry,” he says. He adds, “Even my first film Poda Podi was supposed to be remade in Telugu. That was an experimental film. There has however been films like Singam and other commercial movies with universal content that worked in a dubbed format. Dialogues and emotion based movies don’t always work. If the content is global, people who speak any language, from any village will understand. In my case I want my films to be fresh even after a decade of watching it.”
Vignesh Shivan is all praise for music director Aniruddh and actor Nayantara, he terms the former a genus and a prodigy, and that his music has tremendous reach. Natyantara apparently lost weight and took special interest in her costumes to look 23 or 24 year old. He quips, “When an actor even after ten years of experience puts in effort and treats every day of her work as the first day in her career, she becomes an asset. It rubs off on everyone on the set. All of us did a lot of homework. All artistes like Anand Raj, Partiban are experienced people yet they were ready to try something new.”
Vignesh shares a great rapport with his producer Dhanush, who in turn had a great deal of confidence on him. “I am more of a writer than a director and I focus more on writing and wanted to make a feel-good film. Usually revenge film are gory but I wanted to place it in a unique zone and treat it in a casual and comic way. I wanted to take a very normal story and not take too much time explaining it to the people. I have my tiny approaches to the film like introducing the love aspect in the first scene itself,” concludes a confident Vignesh.
