In an in-depth conversation with Kairam Vaashi, Sai Pallavi, filmmaker Gautham Ramachandran and actor-producer Rakshit Shetty came together to speak about their latest multilingual release Gargi, an emotional courtroom drama that dropped in the theatres today. While the film is presented by Suriya and Jyotika in Tamil, Rakshit is backing the film in Kannada.
"Initially, Kannada wasn't there in the film's release plan. But once we saw the rushes, we decided to present it in Kannada. I also personally believe that it is my duty to get other films and release it here. This industry needs that because in terms of the parallel cinema front that is running in the industry today, we don't have enough filmmakers for this. We need atleast 10-15 films to keep audiences (of such films) busy. I had a few reasons like this. But having watched the film now, I have a 1000 more reasons as to why I wanted to present it," said Rakshit, who was left thinking about the film for a long time after it ended.
The actor then went on to recall how Premam (Alphonse Puthren's Malayalam film starring Sai Pallavi and Nivin Pauly) made him a fan of the actress. "I have been a huge fan of her since Premam. When we were doing Kirik Party, one thing we were sure of was that people should fall in love with the character Saanvi (played by Rashmika Mandanna in the Kannada film), because that is what worked in Premam. So we designed the character in such a way that people fall in love with the character," Rakshit recalled.
Speaking about Sai Pallavi's involvement in the film, Gautham said, "The moment she came on board, I got a lot of confidence. There is this cliche that talks about scripts finding their actors, and I think it was bang on with her. If there was one person during filming who wanted to get the character right more than me and my co-writer, it was Sai Pallavi. Even if I missed something I knew she wouldn't."
Sai Pallavi, who has been the face of several films in the South, further pointed out the importance of doing one film at a time. "I've been lucky that I've always done one film at a time, so when I read the script, there's something that pulls you towards the script and you as a person have a different vision about how life is etc. So, I try to communicate with my director to know whether I'm growing in the right way and by the time we come to the location, before we start shooting, I think I am already the character," she added.