“Until 6 PM, it’s actor Reshma who plays the lead character named Rajini,” begins actor Santhosh in his third attempt to explain his upcoming Tamil film Double Occupancy's high concept. “After 6, Reshma turns into me, and from then, I play Rajini,” Santosh adds, pausing for a moment to see if I finally understood the film’s body swap concept, which revolves around a man and a woman who share a 12-hour body shift with the same personality.
Speaking a week before the release, the cast assures that once we settle down to watch the film on June 12, things will be cleared up.
“Because my character exists only at night time, most of my scenes are set at night. That’s also why I play a bartender,” adds Santhosh, who debuted by playing the younger version of Vikram in Mani Ratnam’s blockbuster Ponnyin Selvan I and II. Santhosh says the narration by writer-director Aswin Kandasamy was so fun that it was obvious he wanted to start his career as a lead actor with this wild film. The film’s crew is also made up of three other actors, all around the same age bracket as Santhosh. Santhosh’s lover in the film is being played by Samyuktha Viswanathan, and Vinoth Kishan plays the other important character, central to the film’s plot.
Among these wacky characters is Reshma Venkatesh, who plays the “female version of Rajini” or the day-time sibling of Santhosh’s character. Reshma, who has starred in films such as Rasavathi and Saala, said she was instantly hooked to the idea of the character swap. But she did wonder how the team would be able to pull it off. Explaining the technical aspect of the “transformation scene” from girl Rajini to boy Rajini, she says, “We shot several scenes on green screen, including the promo. The VFX portions were a lot of fun, and it gave me a chance to try something very different as an actor. It’s not an opportunity that comes often for an actor.”
From the trailer, it looks like Reshma’s character will be seen playing a DNA scientist, perhaps investigating her own mystical gender swap precondition. Vinoth Kishan plays her colleague in the film and also her love interest. As an actor known for playing deadly villain roles, Vinoth says he was amused when he was imagined for a comic role, that too in a film such as this. “Naturally, you can imagine a lot of jokes being written around Reshma’s character switching over into the one being played by Santhosh. And as a love interest, you can imagine the kind of scenes that result in that confusion around 6 PM when this switch takes place, but what I love about the film is how we were able to shoot those scenes without any vulgarity or gross jokes. We didn’t want to go too far, just for laughs.”
Another factor that helped the team create this obvious screen chemistry was how the entire core crew and cast got together for a day of trial shoot, just to get a grip of the concept. “All four actors were present, and we also spent a lot of time on the test to see if we were able to convincingly pull off the CGI portions in which the swap takes,” says Samyukta, who plays Santhosh’s partner in the film.
“More than being a part of the film simply as an actor, what I respected about Aswin was how we all became co-collaborators. We all pitched in with suggestions and ideas, and at times, we were also instrumental in dialling back the comedy to keep it respectful.” This was also why the shoot of comedy scenes was often just as fun to shoot as it was act out as characters, says Samyukta.
Not that comedy is new to the film’s production team. Produced by Avni Movies’ Khushbu Sundar, the film’s creative producer is Anandita Sundar. She is the daughter of Sundar C, a comedy cinema legend in his own right and Khushbu, a Tamil actress with her own unique comic timing.
“I’m the creative producer, so if Aswin comes to me and says he needs a helicopter for the hero’s arrival, it becomes my job to bring it down to the hero simply using his two feet to make that entry,” she jokes, explaining the nature of her job. “Technically, I was also given the authority to keep having discussions with Aswin to make sure all his wild ideas are plausibly brought to life.”
Her transformation from executive producer to creative producer also happened midway through filming. “All it took was a 30-second discussion with Aswin for me to be given this new title in the film. The suggestion to make the hero walk for his entry instead of taking the helicopter was more my suggestion as the executive producer of the film.”
Samyukta adds, “There was this particular joke written around my character, but it was Anandita who pitched in to rework the joke to make sure it doesn’t insult my character. It took her just five minutes. That’s how it works on the sets when we’re all working in tandem.”