Fahadh inspired me to do better: Mohan Raja

Fahadh Faasil’s recent performance in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum has got most of Malayalam film industry once again lauding acting talent. And now it seems that Kollywood too has followed suit.
The actor is making his Tamil debut with Thani Oruvan director Mohan Raja’s Velaikkaran, which also has Sivakarthikeyan and Nayanthara, and the filmmaker is all praise not just for Fahadh’s working style but also how he carries himself off the sets.
Mohan Raja tells us, “It was one of the unique experiences I have had with an artiste. I have always believed that an actor’s job is not just between action and cut if he has to constantly do better. It starts with the lifestyle you live, how you perceive your life and how you treat the others around you. Fahadh reinforced my beliefs in that regard.”
With Velaikkaran being the director’s next after Thani Oruvan, it already came with a set of expectations and casting Fahadh amped up the challenge even more, he says.
“After Thani Oruvan, I wanted to evolve as a better director and for that I believed I had to come up with an even superior antagonist. So, instead of creating the character and casting the actor, I wanted to rope in an actor who would inspire me to create such an antagonist. With Fahadh on board, I knew I had the best and my challenge was to give him a role that would feed off of his thirst as a performer. It motivated me to create something great and after watching the output, I believe I am on the right track,” the director says.
Fahadh plays Adi, a character with several shades in the movie. “He is a friend, he is an enemy, and he is poor, rich. His character is multi-layered,” says Mohan Raja.
Ask him if the actor had any jitters with it being his debut Tamil venture and the director says, “Yes, he was nervous about the language. In fact, I actually did a huge injustice to him as I had promised him that I would give the dialogues well before the shoot started, but couldn’t.”
While the filmmaker says it did make him “feel guilty”, a few days in to the shoot he got to know that Fahadh was fluent in the language. “We also realised that if you give him the dialogues just half hour before the scene, he could still hit it out of the park. We took advantage of that and would only give him the lines late after that.”
Another facet that stood out was that the Malayali actor was never concerned about his screen time or space. “A lot of actors would have thoughts about sharing screen space with another actor but Fahadh was just focused only on his work,” the director says, adding: “I was excited when I was about to work with him and after that that excitement has increased 100 times.”