It has been around three years since his last directorial venture Cobra hit the screens. Later he was busy with several projects as an actor, bagging quite a few awards along the way.
Now, Lal is back as a director with the Dileep-starrer King Liar. It will be a re-union of the hit pair Siddique-Lal, as the story has been written by Siddique.
It was after producer Ouseppachan approached Lal that the team started preparation for the film. “Ouseppachan is one of our close friends and he was one of the producers of our debut directorial project — Ramji Rao Speaking.”
“He was not active in the industry in the past few years. One day he called me and asked me to direct a film for his production house, adding that he had spoken with Siddique who had also agreed to come on board. That is how we zeroed in on this project after a gap,” says Lal.
According to him, they did not have a star in mind while writing the story. “Once the story was ready we decided to approach Dileep to cast him for the lead role. He liked the subject and became part of this film. This is a humour-based family subject,” says the director who will also play a prominent character in the film.
Lal says that he is equally comfortable with acting. “The gap after Cobra occurred as I became busy with projects as an actor. I liked it and projects came back to back, I could not find enough time to dedicate to writing. When it comes to King Liar, the story was written by Siddique and the dialogues were by Bipin Chandran. So I was a bit free during the scripting session,” says Lal, who has Mohanlal’s Pulimurukan and Ullas Mohan-directed Zacharia Pothen Jeevichirippundu in his kitty as actor.
“Zacharia... is an experimental thriller film. Meanwhile, my role in Pulimurukan is completely different from Zacharia… I am sharing screen space with Mohanlal throughout in the film Pulimurukan after Kanmadham and Rock n Roll,” he concludes.
