There was the risk of making a movie with women characters taking the lead. There were the odd challenges that came to every movie set. But Shibu Gangadharan was satisfied about how his characters had been moulded at the end of it.
As his film, Rudra Simhasanam runs into the second week, he is happy to get good feedback from family audiences. Work began when an old acquaintance, Sunil Parameswaran, dropped a storyline among the many things he told Shibu.
“It was a story set in old times, but very much relevant today,” Shibu says. “A man who goes after money and women, and gets it... what becomes of him, what he achieves in the end?” he narrated a one-liner. The next step was setting up Varikkassery Mana for the movie, a month’s work. He roped in his characters, Suresh Gopi and Nedumudi Venu playing important male characters, Shweta Menon, Kaniha and Nikki Galrani playing the women leads.
“Shweta’s character — that of Umayamma, a prostitute — is not one every actress would agree to do. It shows her dedication as an artiste that she agreed,” Shibu says. Kaniha represents the women who suffer because of the superstitions society puts them through and Nikki Galrani plays a girl who realises that the people who once stood with her dad turn against her when he dies.
Suresh Gopi discards the superhero tag and plays only one of the many characters in the film, a peaceful yogi. “Towards the climax, he had a fever, but he wouldn’t take a break or rest. He acted with the fever,” Shibu says. Nedumudi Venu has three getups in the movie, playing different ages of a man.
Shibu is now on the lookout for new stories, that have nothing in common with his first and second — Praise The Lord and Rudra Simhasanam.
