BANGALORE: P Vasu is one of those lucky directors who have had the opportunity to work in quite a few languages and in different industries down South. Having mostly worked with Vishnuvardhan in Sandalwood, Vasu was delighted to get associated with V Ravichandran for Drishya. And from his observation over the years, Vasu feels that Sandalwood is the toughest industry to succeed in, mainly because films of all languages release in Karnataka. “When you fight with other languages, you have to give the best, as the audience gets a taste of Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English films here. People will not watch it as a Kannada film, they want to watch only a good film. This is a very competitive industry. The director who does a good film in Kannada can be the best director in South. That’s what I feel whenever I work in Sandalwood. It is very difficult to satisfy people. You always have to do something different,” he says.
Vasu is aware that Ravichandran, popularly known as Crazy Star, has always been a romantic hero. But this time, the director visualised Ravichandran as a father figure for the first time. “He has not just performed in the role, but he has become a father figure. He will be totally different in this film, without makeup, heroics, fights or flashy songs. You don’t see him talking loudly or with over-expressive eyes. When a big artiste like him performs in films, he usually has to change himself. But here, he has simply been himself,” says Vasu.
Just as he completed Drishya, there came the announcement of his next film Shivalinga with Shivarajkumar produced by K A Suresh. And this is again is the first time the director is associating with the actor, whom he has known from the time he debuted in Anand. “I wrote the script of his other film Rathasapthami. I know him from the time he started his career, but have never worked with him. I am also aware that he chooses different types of characters. So when I narrated the story, he felt that I had something new for him. The type of filmmaking I chose for this film is also new to me. So the script has brought in excitement for both of us,” says Vasu, who will take up a project in another language before he gets back to direct Shivarajkumar. “I have told the story to Shivarajkumar and now I am writing the script. We need a good heroine for the film who can be a performer and not just a glam doll. She should be a thorough artiste because she has a lot of work in the film,” he says.
Vasu admits that it is tough to write scripts for big heroes who have done more than 100 movies. “Even after doing 100 films, they want their next one to be like their first. I have always found it tough to write scripts for stars like Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. You can write a script for a lot of others because they are new, but for the icons, you have to create a new script that is timeless,” he opines.