Actor, singer and music composer, Premgi Amaren is a content man. Not only is he composing the music for Ennamo Nadakathu and Manga, but he is also doing a double role in the latter. The icing on the cake is his meaty role in Biriyani. In a chat with CE, Premgi spills the beans on his films.
“Biriyani is an extraordinary film by my brother Venkat Prabhu with his trademark style of humour,” asserts Premgi. Speaking about his role he says, “I play Karthi’s childhood friend. We go to college together and later end up as workers in a tractor showroom. I am there all through the film and in every song, except for one love duet.” Premgi has also sung Mississippi along with Karthi in the film. Explaining the relevance of the title, Premgi says, “Karthi and I eat a plate of biriyani one night. The story is about how that plate of biriyani changes our lives forever.”
The musician in Premgi is happy too. He discloses that when his cousin, music director Yuvan Shankar Raja, was busy, he took care of the re-recording of the first half of the film too. For fans of Venkat Prabhu, there is good news. “A two-minute trailer of Biriyani will be shown with All In All Azhagu Raja,” discloses Premgi.
In Manga, he gets his first double role with two heroines, Advaita and Leema. “We shot for a month in Kerala in an old house. I play both a bhagavathar from the 1950s and a present day scientist. It’s a complete comedy. Twenty minutes of the movie, including three songs, are shot in black and white,” he says. The challenge for Premgi was to dress up in a wig for the bhagavathar look and then quickly change back to modern attire. “Since it was a double role, both the characters had to be seen together in most frames,” he explains. He learnt how the dialogue was delivered in the olden days and looked up old photographs of the period for the role. Composing the music was a challenge as well. “I heard many yesteryear songs to understand the kind of orchestration used then. One of the songs is special, since it has been shot such that it starts in the 50s and blends into the modern period,” he says. Five songs now remain to be shot for the film, he adds.