CHENNAI: Actor Purnaa, who last starred in Nani’s Dasara, will next be seen alongside Vidhaarth in Devil. According to the actor, most of her scenes were in the night and involved rain.
“I had several scenes set in the rain and shooting for them was not easy. One time, for two consecutive nights I shot fully drenched for a rain sequence. Temperatures were low at night and so the water felt cold. As soon as my shot was over, my team would pour warm water over me to stop the shivering. Then I would return again to emote under the rain. After the shoot, I would shower and change in my room and only then head home the next morning,” says the actor. For another sequence, she had to run out of a house, and into the rain. Unfortunately, she had to run barefoot. However, the actor managed to do it. Purnaa says, “The ground was very slippery and I had to be very careful not to fall.”
For another scene, she had to run on the Chennai roads at night, barefoot yet again. “A camera man would follow me with a steady cam. At times I could hear dogs barking at me as I ran past them on the road. Luckily, they didn’t chase me.”
All the barefoot running took a toll on the actor. “I had to take extra care and apply plenty of moisturising creams daily to protect my feet from cuts and grazes,” reveals the actor. Since the film has chilling supernatural elements, Purnaa had to brace herself for the horror scenes.
“For all the scary scenes, I was shooting solo, with just the unit members around. These were important scenes and they were filmed at a big house on the ECR. It felt all the more scary as there was no lighting except for a candle in the centre. And the rains were beating down hard outside.”
On top of the sinister nature of the setting, the scene demanded that a corpse had to go flying past her for the shot. “Though I knew it was in the scene, the eerie atmosphere, the candle light and the sudden whoosh of the dummy corpse going past me, gave me a big fright,” says the actor with palpable dread in her voice.
But there was also a silver lining which made her cherish the shoot. “I discovered I was pregnant while shooting for Devil. Later, when I revealed it, everyone in the unit was very happy for me. So the shoot of this film will always hold a special place in my memory,” Purnaa signs off with a smile.