Actors often talk about the great pains they go through for a film. In Harish Kalyan’s case, it was literally the case, as he was shooting for his upcoming film, Pyar Prema Kadhal that’s directed by Elan, and co-stars his Bigg Boss fellow contestant, Raiza Wilson.
An interval block scene was being canned on the lawns of a house in Chennai, and the scene demanded that Raiza slap Harish and say a lengthy dialogue. Now, being new to the industry, Raiza had no idea how to fake a slap. Despite many rehearsals, Raiza couldn’t get the timing right. “Her hesitation was evident on the monitor. So in order to make things easier, I asked her to go ahead and give me a real slap,” says Harish.
Raiza rose to the challenge, and as the director yelled action, she gave him a resounding slap. “I reeled under the impact. It stung so bad that I teared up. The lightman near me yelled ‘yappaa’ on hearing the slap!” he recalls. Raiza, however, was unperturbed and continued with her dialogue. “I have done many action scenes, but this was the first time I got slapped. I have had a pampered upbringing, and no one has slapped me ever. My cheek was burning and the reaction you’ll see on screen is very real!” he says. The scene had to be redone at a few more times, so it could be shot from other angles. “By the end, my cheek was quite red!”
Harish also remembers another interesting shooting schedule, when the unit took special permission and camped at a posh software company. By the end of the shooting, the place was apparently in a mess. The unit hands had supposedly moved around office furniture and mixed up files, in order to accommodate the cameras and other equipment.
“I opened excel files on some computers and pottered around to look convincing for my shot,” confesses Harish. “I felt guilty about it and left a note apologising for the mess we created.”
Two days later, Harish found a message from a stranger on his social media account. “It was one of the employees telling me that he found my note and that everyone was quite touched by my text.”