Suggested Topics :
Interview | Pawan Kumar on 'Shodha': 'It Gave Me A High I Hadn’t Experienced In Two Years'
The Kannada director-actor speaks about playing a lawyer in the Zee5 show ‘Shodha’, and the joy of putting himself in the most difficult situations.
Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar has had a trajectory like no other in the industry. He crowdfunded to make the irresistible Lucia (2013), a defining fixture of modern Kannada cinema, directed the gripping genre title U-Turn (2016), which spawned various remakes, put his weight behind Raj B Shetty’s Ondu Motteya Kathe (2017) as a producer, and made his debut in the Malayalam film industry with Fahadh Faasil’s experimental film Dhoomam (2023).
This, apart from his various stints across industries as an actor. When this is pointed out, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor-filmmaker admits he could've never imagined this journey. “If I'm in a very comfortable space, I find it very draining. So I go and put myself out there in difficult situations,” he laughs.
Pawan is now gearing up for Shodha, a Kannada series premiering on Zee5 on August 29 — a title that will see him play a lawyer struggling to recognise his wife. The role had an interesting personal journey, the actor-director tells THR India. “It felt like something for which I was preparing all my life because the interesting coincidence is that the first ever play that I wrote and acted in, way back in 1994, called ‘Straws of Justice’, revolved around a lawyer, played by me,” he says.
It was a role where he sought some help from his father, who has experience working in the judicial department. “I sat with him and wrote the play in my 8th grade. Now, 31 odd years later, I would still call him up to ask if certain things were possible or okay to depict as a lawyer."
Pawan says the role gave him a high, one that he had stopped experiencing two years ago. Streaming enables a thriving space for actors like him looking for something different, he notes. “Movies are business-driven decisions. Even if there is something I feel I can do, I may not sell tickets. OTT, however, opens up a great space for actors who love to deal with the craft. Even in Hindi, some actors have never been leads in commercial cinema, but are stars in streaming. Take Jaideep Ahlawat, for instance, who is a fabulous actor.”
At a time when Kannada content is often overlooked by streamers, Pawan has another perspective on this problem. “Streaming is not a free open market like cinema, where you make a film, put it out, find your theatres and distribute it. It is a private business decision,” he says. “Data needs to tell them that it's worth making a Kannada series. It needs a leap of faith. This was one of my reasons for me to take up Shodha. We cannot question Netflix or Amazon asking why they are not doing it. Hopefully, they realise a market for it soon."
With smaller Kannada titles such as Su From So and Mithya getting incredible responses, is it finally time for the industry to get its due? Consistency is what’s been missing in the industry, Pawan notes.
“There have always been such hits. There will be a massive hit and a surge in the number of people showing business interest. What we have lacked is consistency. Every industry goes through that cycle, but I hope we find a much better footing soon where the consistency doesn't go from 0 to 100 or 100 to 0.”
Pawan also mentions the power of audiences to chalk up a film’s significance. “As much as the network is coming forward, investing money and producing, the audience also has a responsibility to subscribe to the film. The money inflow has to happen, and unless the audience also says 'let me not tap into free pirated sources,' it's not going to happen.”
The filmmaker’s admiration for audience feedback could be ascertained in the way he handled the responses to Dhoomam, which didn’t make an impression at the box office.
“I had left a QR code in the end credits of the film for people to text me directly about the film. I still receive 4-5 messages from the audience who watched the movie today. I find that as a great way of reaching the audience as opposed to measuring how much it made on the first weekend.”
Art is a very subjective experience, the filmmaker notes. “When you're putting yourself out there in a commercial space where a lot of investment has gone into it, it really changes people's lives because money is real. But if you let me look at it from the perspective of creating art, how the audience felt is all that I'd be interested in. Dhoomam could be a box office flop, but I have 5,000 DMs where at least 60 per cent felt very moved. It didn't reach the right audience in the theatre, but on YouTube it ended up reaching its audience.”
Pawan is in a zone today, where he doesn’t plan his projects. He didn’t know he’d be doing Shodha a few months back, and he isn’t quite sure what’s going to come his way next. “I'm really liking this space," he says as he talks about pouring his energies into his lush farm near Mysore for the past three years.
“I must have planted about 2000 saplings, converted a 4-acre empty land into a lush forest with all kinds of fruits, vegetables. I learnt about non-chemical farming, and attended workshops.” And all of this from someone who didn’t even know how to pot a plant in his balcony a couple of years ago, he reminds with laughs.