According to Aadhi Pinisetty, shooting for his upcoming comedy film Partner felt like being on vacation. He reveals that the upbeat mood of the film’s shoot was a refreshing change from the stressful atmosphere usually found in film sets.
“Since it is a comedy with a large ensemble cast, the mood on the sets was light-hearted. At first, I asked director Manoj Damodharan a lot of questions about the emotional state and behaviour of my character before each scene. But by the third day, I realised that the goal was not to prepare but to create fun moments on screen with the others. To discover that there was no major prep involved, unlike my previous films, was new for me. However, I soon eased into this style of working and started enjoying it,” says Aadhi.
Several fun incidents happened even between shoots. On one occasion, a sequence had to be shot in a large, multi-storeyed corporate office complex. “One office floor had been assigned to us for shooting. Once the shot was ready, I headed to that office on a particular floor. As I walked in, I noticed how wonderfully realistic the set looked. I admired the way everyone was working so earnestly at their computers.” But when everyone started staring at him, Aadhi realised something was amiss.
“Someone came up and asked me who I wanted to meet. By then I realised I had walked into a real office, on the wrong floor. When I explained, they all laughed. We had a brief chat and many came up and took selfies. After that, I went to the correct floor where the shoot was scheduled. It was a fun mix-up moment.” Due to the large ensemble cast, the actors who were not shooting for a particular scene had lots of time to chill out on sets. “If it was a serious film, between shots we would be in the mood of our character, learning lines or thinking about our performance.
But on the Partner sets, we all wanted to be in the mood of the film, so that the camaraderie would translate onto the screen. So, one activity we all did in abundance, was playing games. From Uno Flip and Ludo to Table Tennis and Ping Pong we played it all. We even improvised and invented our own games with disposable cups and had prizes for the winner.”
One time, Aadhi, Hansika Motwani and Pallak Lalwani had to shoot an intense scene in a small room. “Everyone had a continuous exchange of dialogues. It was a very noisy scene. The director was in another room with the monitor. Hansika and Pallak were taking the prompting and shouting their lines. After a while, I realised something was wrong. The room was small and the prompters had hardly any space on the sides. So, amidst all the commotion, they interchanged their dialogues by mistake. So, Hansika had picked up Pallak’s dialogues and Pallak was reciting Hansika’s lines. When the director too noticed, we all had a good laugh.”
Another time, Aadhi had to drive a bike with a Contessa car following him. “The shoot was in a maze of small lanes on the ECR. After several turns, I reached a dead end. I realised then that the Contessa car was nowhere in the vicinity and no camera was filming me. I thought I had driven too fast and left them behind.” Retracing his steps, Aadhi found that the car had broken down midway and he had been too engrossed in navigating the tiny lanes, to notice it.
Every day Aadhi looked forward to the shoot, “Each day was full of spontaneous, fun moments with Yogi Babu, Ravi Maria, John Vijay and the others. It was like going on a holiday. That camaraderie between all of us has contributed to the comedy in the film.”