24 might be a Tamil film and of course Tamil Super star Suriya is the protagonist/antagonist of the movie, but director Vikram Kumar is a non-Tamilian. It is in fact his second Tamil movie after blockbusters in Telugu and Hindi. Neither of these is his mother tongue. Vikram is a Keralite who hails from the cultural capital of the State — Thrissur.
The Malayali director is on Cloud Nine after getting good response for 24, his seventh movie, from all the releasing centres. It was last year Vikram started the preparation for this project. “One day, I got the call from Suriya sir and we sat for a meeting. In fact, he wanted me to remake my previous Telugu film — Manam, which had Akkineni Nageswara Rao sir, Akkineni Nagarjuna sir and Akkineni Naga Chaitanya in the lead roles — to Tamil with Suriya sir, his brother Karthi and their father Sivakumar sir. But I was not interested in a remake. (Even before that, I had rejected a remake offer forwarded by Sanjay Leela Bhansali sir.) It was then I told him about 24 and he rightly agreed to listen to the script. He not only agreed to essay the lead roles, but showed interest in producing the movie also,” says Vikram.
Vikram Kumar with Suriya It is not for the first time Vikram’s hero is becoming a producer of his film. His previous projects — Manam and Ishq were produced by the lead actors. As a new addition to the list, Allu Arjun, who is essaying the lead role in Vikram’s next film, will be its producer.
The script of 24 was with Vikram for six years. His initial plan was to direct this project with another star in Tamil. “This project was planned after the release of Yaavarum Nalam (13 B in Hindi). Owing to certain reasons, I had to drop that subject then. Later I moved to Telugu and directed two movies back to back,” says Vikram, who believes that the filmmaker should be comfortable with each language in which he is making the film.
It was in Telugu Vikram started his career along with late Raj Kumar (son of lyricist-director Sreekumaran Thampi) after assisting Priyadarshan for around four years. “Though he was two-three years elder to me both in the age and seniority, Raj was my close friend in Priyan sir's camp. It was that friendship which mooted us to direct a film together.
As we decided earlier, after the release of our debut film Ishtam in Telugu, we started working separately,” says the director adding, “Though we were not working together, we were in touch through phone calls. Our last call was a week before his death. I still can’t believe that he is not with us now. He was such a lovely person.”
When it comes to the language, he says, “Ishtam taught me and Raj a big lesson. We were not fluent in Telugu while doing that film. Though the dialogues were written by us, it was later translated by a person from there. When we watched the film during its editing, we could see that there were many issues in the dialogues. That was a big lesson. After that, I have not tried my hands on films I am not good. Now I can handle Hindi, Telugu and Tamil well,” says the director, who has not yet directed a single film in his mothertongue in which he never needs a special class.
When quizzed about it, he says “See, this is the same question I am facing from my relatives and friends since I started my career as a filmmaker. Their major complaint is that I am doing films in languages they cannot understand, especially Telugu.
Even I am interested in doing films in Malayalam. But all I say is that a filmmaker should go behind opportunities. We should not turn down the offers which come to you. All the offers which came to me were from other languages. That may be because the majority films I done as an assistant director was from those languages,” he says, adding, “I am ready with the scripts to be done in Malayalam. Of course, I will come to my home industry once I get an opportunity.”
