Vijay Sethupathi has a rare gift – Aarumuga Kumar
Vijay Sethupathi owns a lovely significance of establishing his domain in Tamil film industry with three substantial aspects. Appealing scripts, unique roles and utilizing the potentials of new directors have been piloting him to inevitable escalation. Indeed, his collaborations with new filmmakers have never failed to let him clasp the throne of success. Now it’s all going to be the same with filmmaker Aarumuga Kumar, the director of Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren. With his Vijay Sethupathi-Gautham Karthik starrer film is scheduled for release on February 2, Aarumuga Kumar interacts with Richard Mahesh Rajakumar about the embarkation of directorial journey, his acquaintance with Vijay Sethupathi and what actually inspired him to ideate on ONNPS.
Journey in films and acquaintance to Vijay Sethupathi
Perhaps, many might wonder what’s going to be special in a filmmaker’s journey just on his maiden debut. The maximum phase would be the time of script’s inception to the film’s release isn’t? But Aarumuga Kumar has more than just this routine process. Pursuing the graduation in Visual Communication from SRM University, he was the first one in the entire league of short filmmakers-turned-feature filmmakers to get acquainted with Vijay Sethupathi. “Yes, we actually got to know each other during the shooting of ‘Varnam’, where he played an important role. Later our bonding got much stronger during the times of Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom,” says Aarumuga Kumar.
“A Crime-Comedy for Vijay Sethupathi!!!”
It has become a ritual practice for any aspiring or established filmmaker to come up with experimental scripts keeping Vijay Sethupathi in mind. In fact, he is a gate-opener in Tamil cinema through which lots of newfangled genres came into existence. So what was Aarumuga Kumar’s initial desire of script for Makkal Selvan?
“It was a crime comedy that I actually narrated to Vijay Sethupathi before a long time. But he became so much busy with lots of projects that it couldn’t get materialized. The major reason is that it demanded a pretty stretched call sheet from him, which as everyone knows is not possible for the moment,” utters Aarumuga Kumar.
“Vijay Sethupathi personally rang up to Gautham Karthik for ONNPS”
Can anyone could be so much friendly and congenial as Vijay Sethupathi? Yes, he is highly adored for such inherent nature of believing that a script should possess strong characters and right casting would fill the other space. So here is one such illustration that would make everyone go into frozen mode of astonishment. So was I, when Aarumuga Kumar surprised me saying, “Do you know, even before Vijay Sethupathi signed Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren, he preferred Gautham Karthik would justice to the other lead role. It was not just saying, but he made things happen. I tried reaching Gautham Karthik many times and couldn’t reach him. But Vijay Sethupathi took the task on his shoulder and personally rang up Gautham requesting him to listen to my narration. After getting him onboard, the other lead character demanded for someone powerful. It’s when Vijay Sethupathi said that he has got some leisure dates and we got him finally.”
Gayathri’s Instinct and Niharika’s Instagram
Getting the best lead actors onboard, the next obvious challenging for any filmmaker is get beautiful and talented – both imbibed in each other. So what actually prompted Gayathrie and Niharika Kondidela? “Gayathri’s role is this film is laced with not just humour, but her character is somewhat quite suspicious and intuitional. In fact, in real life, she possesses such inherent traits, which made me quickly go for her. When it comes to Niharika, her looks were the need of this role. To be much clear, I didn’t even see a single clipping of her Telugu movie, but just an Instagram pic. I narrated the script and she was so much impressed with her characterization,” claims Aarumuga Kumar.
Vijay Sethupathi’s rare gift that not many possess
Having been so much close to Vijay Sethupathi for years, what’s special quality that Aarumuga Kumar sees in him? “You know something! Vijay Sethupathi possesses a rare gift that not many in the industry have. He completely gets into the specific mindset of script before listening to the narration. If you’re gonna narrate him comedy script, he will be completely in that mood and if thriller, he keeps himself curious to see what’s next with twist and turns in the narration.”
