Vikram Interview: I Have 8 Getups

Q. Tell us about the movie and it’s highlights? A. My character is a super hero character. Speaking on the whole, the film delivers a wonderful message and is delivered beautifully, stylishly, extravagantly and musically with wonderful stunts and this is the biggest film that I’ve done till date. The concept is very interesting and is unlike the seriousness associated with a message-oriented film. The packaging is just beautiful. It’s an interesting role, all the girls will like my character, and all the boys will like Shriya’s character. The film’s a total family entertainer as there is nothing by the way of obscenity and the fine balance between glamour and obscenity is well maintained throughout the film. The kids are gonna love the super hero character. We want all the kids to go watch the film, as we are sure they will love the superhero character. Coming to the songs, they are totally different unlike the routine Item number or remix number or a romance duet. The songs are in a different category and are very peppy numbers. I always say that Devi is full of positive energy and the songs totally reflect that energy and you will find them very interesting. Q. How was the whole experience? A. The entire unit was close knit and whenever we had time, we were always laughing by cracking jokes at each other and that great mood reflects in the mood of the movie. All the new experiences during the shooting of the film are great and right from the day I heard the story, we never felt for a bit that we were part of a big project; rather we concentrated on the thought, the effort, and the energy that went into the film. The song’s are a huge hit in Tamil and are soon catching up in Andhra and turning out to a big hit there too. Everyone was surprised about the songs and they couldn’t believe that the songs have turned out be really good. Q. How about your singing experience in Telugu? A. Well I found that guys in Andhra are relaxing especially with the Deccan Chargers winning the IPL and I somehow wanted to torture you people. So (laughs all around) I went ahead with the singing. But coming to my style, I think it’s a bit different for example take the case of Udit Narayan. He isn’t fluent in Tamil or Telugu but his tone while singing Tamil or Telugu numbers resembles an interesting style. Q. your preparations for portraying the character? A. well the character resembles that of a James bond character. He is a CBI officer. I haven’t done any home work for this particular role like observing the characteristics. Nevertheless, for the first time I have observed the characterization of a particular person for this movie. I have watched James Bond movies, the character’s portrayal by Pierce Brosnan- his style, his emotions and the likes. likewise, for this superhero character, which has to portray some hen like behavior, I observed a rooster that I have got at my home for ten days. And let me tell you that I have never observed people for a character but for this role I had to observe a rooster and so this is my home work. That observation basically gave me ideas about its behavior, its movements and the likes and that I used for the movements in a fight that was to resemble the behavior of a chicken. Q. what about the Characterizations? A. The characterizations are totally different and they enjoy great variation. The main thing that one will observe is that the characters are very stylish. Normally people don’t shop around the world for costumes unlike they do for location hunting. We shopped around the globe from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, New York and Italy. These costumes were custom made and took about three months to make. Even the head gear was imported from Italy as well. We wanted to leave our mark for the super hero character and wanted the superhero to have a south Indian flavor. We also took care to represent the entire south not just Tamil. Q. Tell us about the promotion of the film? A. We did lots of homework but finally were able to come up with a great movie. The whole movie, be it with the songs, the fights, the publicity or even for the trailer we took great care and tried to leave a mark. For example, just for the audio release function we had around 100 dancers from Italy. Shriya, Devi and Mumaith Khan danced at that function while I sang. This is the first of its kind for an audio function in the country. Now I don’t know what’s lined up for the release but I think they will definitely come up with something great. So It’s a good start let’s see. Q. In how many getups have you appeared in the film? A. It’s not the number of getups in the film that matter. They may be 5, may be 25 but I like to say that they are different looks rather than getups. But the importance is not for the getups it’s for our handling of the subject I think the getups just add spice. Overall, I guess that there are about 8 different getups in the movie.