Theatre and film actor Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli, who confesses that she is a ‘big’ fan of actor Kamal Haasan, wanted to experience how Kamal Haasan would have felt donning vastly different characters in film after film. What did she do? Along with three of her friends — Lalitha Rajamanickam (Make Up), Subashini Vanangamudi (Photographer), Dakshana Rajaram (Stylist), she recreated the looks of her most favourite characters played by actor Kamal Haasan. A total of 9 movies were selected and 12 iconic still photographs were recreated.
“All four of us were bored and over a casual conversation we thought we should do a tribute of sorts to this man. Also, this was an opportunity for me to fill the shoes of characters we all have loved so much,” says Lakshmi Priyaa.
While Lakshmi Priyaa says that the effort was in part inspired by Vidya Balan’s photo shoot for a popular movie magazine recently, where she recreated old movies, she wanted to give it a twist. “The idea was to do a female version of the characters. I didn’t want to sport a moustache,” she says.
Being die-hard fans, this all-women team were obviously spoilt for choices. They first listed out their most favourite movies, struck out those films that were too difficult to reproduce. “For instance, we couldn’t do the look of Aalavandhan because the big arms were the highlight. We picked films where the characters stood out,” she said.
Was the experience worth it? “I have always watched him as a member of the audience but being an actor was slightly different. I loved him as an audience. But when I became an actor, I could appreciate his work in a better way. We learnt that the man has even changed his skin tones in few of the characters. It was challenging and a great learning experience.”
