Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus film Ponniyin Selvan was a hit, and so did its second part. And what better than interacting with one of the cast members Aishwarya Lekshmi, sharing her insights on being a part of the film, and more in an exclusive chat with The Pioneer.
SHIKHA DUGGAL
Despite a slowdown in box-office collections, the Mani Ratnam magnum opus managed to be rock steady at the box office. And then we had one of the cast members, the so-popular Aishwarya Lekshmi who is around for so long, we saw her falling in love with her craft. Yes, she is a relevant actor but nothing comes easy.
She spoke about her trajectory and exclusive deets about the period drama, “The second part of the phenomenal movie is where most of the action is happening and I had to be there. Probably action wouldn’t be the apt word, I call it a high-octane drama with some romance. The scenes are not directed, they are choreographed. The placement of each one of us was so important! Indeed I am playing a supporting character in comparison with the first part, yet for me, the magnitude of the film seals the deal. As an actress, each one of us wants to be a part of Mani Ratnam’s process once in a lifetime! Neither do I get selfish in this industry, I believed in whatever part was given to me.”
Well, we were convinced by what she had to say, but there was something else she added to the meaningful conversation, “I have a very normal life from the beginning. I finished medicine and then enter the industry! If not an actress, I was supposed to be a doctor. There were even plans of me getting settled down in a small part of Kerala with my parents. I never thought of becoming an actor, I was plucked by the industry. Now life has become a little bit of a suspense thriller because none of us as actors are stable in life. We are even getting to learn from the promotional events that we are doing these days.”
But this is something about this actress, because when we rewind our produced interview with Aishwarya, we remember how she is to get nervous before every shot she gives. Now her process has refined so much that for example when she was working with Mani Ratnam she just surrendered herself to him. She continued with us, “Mani Ratnam can do no wrong, this is my core belief. I have been reading about him from the beginning of my career! Before I had a lot of preconceived notions even though I heard a lot many interviews given by him, but when I met him, this director is really an icon for all of us. The insight stories tell us that when Mani Ratnam finished reading the book he made a lot of omissions according to him. He went brutal! Secondly, for him, the technicians mattered a lot. We still didn’t understand how every scene became poetic all of a sudden. I worked with so many directors, and the cast will agree with me that all of us wanted to be his puppet. I never saw the biggest of the bigger actors play ego games on the sets of his film. And it’s all earned by Mani Ratnam himself.”
As an individual, she also believes that there is so much happiness in this world but people forget to tap into it. At the same time, she commits, that no one else can give you that happiness but it’s really an internal state of being and it all depends on your perspective. So the happy-go-lucky actress continues, “Commercial film or not that doesn’t matter to me. My character needs to be impressive and emotional! The team that I am working with should be talked about in this industry. All of us want money and fame but at the same time, you also want to leave poignant characters for your fans. So the mixture of this makes the intention pure!”
Moving ahead in the conversation there was a time on the telephone that she couldn’t put her feelings into words because she got tangled about her pet. She believes just because pets exist, the acceptance level also increases in life and just a presence of a pet encourages a person like Aishwarya to work even harder in life.
Going back to the cinematic context (we laugh together), she voices, “There was a research that went into the creation of music, set designs, be it costumes or jewellery. In fact, even the makeup! I remember using the artillery that was so heavy for me but the director was adamant about it. None of the heavy armours or artillery or jewellery were replaced by artificial props! No, that’s not the director’s style at all. If you have noticed the grandeur of the film, we have come close to the Chola architecture. The main song that I am a part of it has the tunes of real water in it! The music composers were not interested in a lot of instruments instead. Another insight that I heard was that the musicians of our film actually travelled all the way to Bali and other parts of the world to learn about how to produce real music.”
We were hearing the director propagating a lot about the emotion that is felt in his movie but Aishwarya Lekshmi begs to differ a little, “I am not sure about the emotion but I am certainly sure about devotion towards my character. I was always empowered on the sets as my character! I was asked to be fearless, and as expressive as I can be. Apart from devotion another quality that is so talked about in the film is loyalty, then comes pride and courage.”
