Alancier was panicky to do that scene. It’s a tricky line — “Enne karayikkale, nayinte mone” (don’t make me cry, you son of a bitch). It had to be funny, and it had to be touchy. Will it work, Alancier asked director Dileesh Pothen. He needn’t have feared, it worked more than well. The theatre had erupted with laughter the first day the movie was screened — Maheshinte Prathikaram had come to the audience with the joys of little one-liners like these, making you laugh and love the characters, especially Baby chettan played by Alancier.
“I was at first doubtful if I could do comedy. Then Dileesh said, ‘Chetta, you do it seriously, people will laugh’,” Alancier says on a day he came to Thiruvananthapuram, his hometown. There’s only a day here, he had to rush back to Kochi to work in Rajeev Ravi’s third venture with Dulquer Salmaan. He plays a goon in it. In both of Rajeev Ravi’s films before this — Annayum Rasoolum and Njan Steve Lopez — Alancier had been a policeman. “People look at me and think I am this really serious fellow, so that’s the kind of roles I get offered. But I am very light-hearted in life, I say jokes.” That part is obvious, Alan laughs between every few of his lines, becoming comfortable as he speaks on of his experiences in the set. You can see how he progresses from one movie to another.
But before and between movies, there’s theatre, his first love from schooldays. He became active in his days at the University College. There’ve been many theatre groups and tours, but movies in recent years have kept him too busy. Yet when it’s March 27, World Theatre Day, Alancier will do something to celebrate, at least a solo play. Last March 27, while in the US shooting for Monsoon Mangoes, the cast and crew sat in a piece of lawn and played small acts.
Before Annayum Rasoolum, he had acted in a few films, the first one being P.A.
Backer’s Sakhavu. There’s been Margam and Shayanam after that. For some reason he kept getting roped into movies of a parallel kind. “That’s the kind of movies my friends were doing.” He acts in movies of friends, where he feels comfortable.
Annayum Rasoolum had happened because it was Rajeev’s whom he knew from the days of doing a short film Nizhal Kazhchakal. “Rajeev who did the cinematography was then a student of FTII. It was directed by Gopan Chithambaran who wrote Iyobinte Pusthakam, his associate was Amal Neerad and the still photographer was Anwar Rasheed.”
In Annayum Rasoolum he made friends with Fahadh who suggested his name for Maheshinte Prathikaram.
