Director Venky Atluri's upcoming Tamil film, Vishwanath and Sons, starring Suriya and Mamitha Baiju, is the result of nearly eleven drafts. Atluri sat down with THR India to discuss the challenge of writing a story about a couple with an age difference, what working with Suriya was like and why Mamitha Baiju was an obvious right choice for the film.
The challenge was one he had set himself: telling a story about a romantic relationship with a significant age gap, as a happy and light tale. "Trying to establish a taboo, but ending it right... I had to work a lot on that."
The film draws, as Venky says, “light inspiration” from Yash Chopra's 1991 film Lamhe. He was drawn to the 'older man-younger woman' dynamic and the particular challenge it presents. "It's a very sensitive line which can go wrong. But as long as you try to keep it the cute way, the playful way... you can't go wrong."
His aim while writing the story was simple: by the end of the film, audiences should not be divided, and should feel that the climax was apt. "They have to go out saying, yes, this is right. This ended right."
The casting, he says, was where everything came together. The first decision was Suriya.
What made Suriya's casting significant was that while other actors over the age of 30 choose not to address the fact, Suriya was willing to embrace his age on-screen, rather than avoid it. "Usually when an actor is post 30, they try to avoid their age. They don't talk about their age on screen and just simply avoid it. But Suriya sir was very, very confident that he wanted to do that role."
Once Suriya agreed, the question became who to cast opposite him.
"We wanted to cast Mamitha. She's already done Premalu and some other films in Malayalam, which established that she's really cute," said Atluri, explaining why Baiju was, in his words, a "no-brainer."
"Casting Mamitha opposite him brought in that cheerful and playful attitude. And with that, nothing will seem wrong." He draws a distinction in how he wanted the relationship to read, explaining, "A girl loving a man versus a girl admiring a man is the whole difference between icky and poetic cute."
With respect to the shoot, he says, his instructions only needed to be general, since his lead actors knew their game. Suriya read almost every draft of the film till the final script was locked, whereas Mamitha required almost no instruction from him, he explained.
"She doesn't care about how she looks on screen, and only about how she's going to perform. She's not intimidated by the seniority she shares the screen with." He shared how this meant there was no need to teach her the role in any significant way. "I was just giving her the lines and she was just in her element."
Atluri also got Suriya to sing a song for the film, something he describes as wearing him down over multiple asks. Suriya initially declined, then agreed to give the Tamil version a shot; and once he got the Tamil version of the song down, the director convinced him to record the Telugu version of the song as well.
Vishwanath and Sons, which is written and directed by Atluri, comes to theatres on August 14.
Watch our full interview with the director on The Hollywood Reporter India's YouTube channel soon