With only a day left for the grand release of Nelson’s Jailer, starring Rajinikanth and Ramya Krishnan, the makers have been sharing major highlights from the recently held audio launch. In one such snippet, the director, who is known for his deadpan black comedies, was visibly nervous as he went on to share his thoughts about Jailer.
Nelson says that it was both exciting and challenging to work with so many actors in a multi-starrer. “For Jailer, whenever I worked with relatively new-generation actors like VTV Ganesh, Redin Kingsley and others, they wouldn’t listen to me on the sets,” he laughs. But when he worked with big stars like Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Jackie Shroff and Shivraj Kumar, the scenario was totally different. “The senior actors were only willing to follow my vision. Sometimes, I had no idea how to match these two different kinds of energies on the sets and had to sync their performances without calling much attention to this difference.”
Before the film went on floors, Nelson tried to imitate the dialogues in Rajinikanth’s style to ensure those ideas click with the audience. “I know that once he delivers it, those lines will definitely work on screen. I ended up just imitating his style to convey what I have in mind.” He also recounted his fanboy moments of Rajnikanth on and off the screen. “When I was a child, I used to watch Annamalai (1992) on VHS and be amazed at his screen presence and swag. It was Vijay sir who gave me the confidence to approach Rajni sir and narrate my script to him.”
The director also spoke about the negative reactions to his previous film Beast and how he handled those while filming Jailer. “Even when I was at my lowest point during the start of the production, Rajini sir never made me feel insecure. He has shown total trust in me from day one and I am surprised to see the amount of respect he shows towards his directors. He always made me feel good about myself and the film we were making. If this movie turns out to be a success, it's all thanks to his confidence in me!”
Jailer has music composed by Anirudh Ravichandar and cinematography by Vijay Karthik Kannan.