After I conceived the character, I approached Raj Kiran sir. Considering the heavy preparations for the looks, he politely turned it down. After I watched Aranya Kaandam and Maayavan, I felt Jackie Shroff’s physique, gait and face would suit my lead character of an Aghori. I had texted him the one-line of the script. He asked me what’s his role. I said ‘Aghori’. He immediately gave his nod and said, ‘Aghori? Ok, please come, let’s discuss’.
He is not an Aghori whom we see in Varanasai. But he is more of a ‘siddhar’. Siddhars have the ‘Sakthi’ of Lord Shiva. He plays Muneeswaran and Paandiamma is the ghost and the story is about how Muni controls Pandi’s ferocity and calms her down. Actress Meghali essays the ghost.
I went to his house in Mumbai and narrated the full script in broken English. He listened without uttering a word and went inside. He did not come out for 45 minutes or so and sitting alone in the huge drawing room, I was wondering if he didn’t like the script. Suddenly he came out clad in saffron cloth with ash applied on his body. He asked if that was the kind of look I wanted in the film. I went speechless seeing his dedication even before the signing the film.
There’s an important monkey portion in the film and the unit is planning to shoot the episode in Bangkok where trained monkeys are available. The monkey is called Annamalai in the movie. If we shoot in abroad, we don’t need AWB permission.
