Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa dal talentuosissimo Fahadh Faasil ad Anupama Chopra e a Baradwaj Rangan, pubblicata ieri da Film Companion. Make your directors fall in love with you; you'll never run out of content: Fahadh Faasil:
'AC: It has taken us eight months to get you here.
I think it's because I feel incomplete about my films. I don't know when the right time to talk about them is. I usually talk about them only after a year when I have actually realised what I tried to do and what I achieved. When we start shooting I think, 'Is this how it is supposed to be?', 'Is this right?' or 'Is this how it is in the script?'. And after release, I'm thinking 'Did I get it right?' I always go through that cycle in my head for all my films and that's why I'm always absent from promotions.
AC: You just shot See you soon with Mahesh Narayanan. And you mentioned that this is not a feature film and it is kind of an experiment.
I met Mahesh 10 years ago when I moved to Kochi. When we eventually decided to do Take off, we knew it wasn't the first film we wanted to do together. But I had to be there for him. That is how Take off, and then Malik happened and then we decided to do an even bigger film and then the lockdown happened. Then, he came up with this idea that we can eventually redesign a film on the editing table. He said he needed three actors who need not be together, it could happen over phone and video and things like that. I thought it was crazy but I did a test shoot for a day and told him to capture the portions with the other actors. (...) When he came back with a rough edit, I knew I wanted to be part of the film. I told him to not worry about the theatrical release or money and to just shoot it.
BR: When Irrfan Khan passed away, you wrote a deeply moving note where you said 'I owe my acting career to him. I don't think I would have come this far in my career had I not picked up that DVD and watched that film'. Which DVD was it and what time in your life were you in when you watched that film and how did it help your acting?
It's a film directed by Naseeruddin Shah called Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota. I saw it in 2005 and it was my third year in America. That was the first time I saw Irrfan on screen and he didn't look like an actor to me. I couldn't stop looking at him, even when other actors came on screen. He looked so graceful. I kept looking at his feet to check whether his feet were on the floor, he seemed to be always floating. No one has made that kind of an impression on me. (...)
AC: In the few interviews you have given, you've mentioned that you don't prep for a role. What is the Fahadh Faasil process? (...)
I think my prep is to costantly interact with my writer and director and DOP on the sets. I never finish my films on schedule because, for me, the filming process takes a lot of time. (...) The prep I do is that I keep interacting. I never stop questioning. (...) I might have a one-liner. Most of the time, we have the climax. We know this is how we want to conclude (...) and that changes like five days into the shoot. I think the drive to shoot is to achieve what we initially thought or the fire we had for the initial idea. So, once we capture that, then that's when things start growing. It's difficult but it is very interesting and I love it. (...) I rarely walk in to sets prepared. The moment I have to prepare, I think I will collapse. When I work in Tamil, the biggest problem is that I don't think in Tamil. I go there and read the script and then translate it into my language and then learn the lines. That process is not easy for me. I want to do a Tamil or Hindi film and speak in Malayalam (laughs).
AC: Is it true that when you shot Take off with Parvathy, you asked her how her character's signature would be? How does a detail like that affect what you are doing? (...)
What fascinated me was that after she read the script, she was talking like Sameera, thinking like Sameera, and we were on sets and I was not able to get it right. So, I tried talking to her and at that time she was fiddling with a pen and then I told her to just sign Sameera, and the way she signed was very vulnerable. (...) Something about it looked vulnerable to me and that is where I picked it from. (...) These are actually very small things that nobody really notices. (...)
AC: Is it true that you take two days to get into character and you request your director to reshoot the first two days later?
Yeah. My first two days are exercise. I never get them right. (...) All my films we have actually gone back and shot the first two days. (...)
AC: Is acting stressful for you or do you find joy in it? And, how do you deal with films that don't do well?
I believe I have become a better human being once I started acting and started taking it seriously, because that is when I started thinking about others. When a film goes wrong, what actually goes wrong is your thought process and what you have been thinking for the last two or three years. (...) That is very difficult to accept for me. I actually get into a defensive mode and I try to explain, 'This is what I tried'. (...) Because I was wrong, the film went wrong and I usually accept that. But that phase is very difficult for me. I usually take time to come out of it. I come out of it when I find something else to be excited about.
BR: [Thiagarajan] Kumararaja said that you knew only three Tamil words and he was completely amazed that you did the dubbing for the film with all emotions intact. He spoke about it as if he had almost sighted a UFO. How do you do that, especially in a language you don't know?
I have to give it to Kumar. I was very sceptical about it. I wanted to do a film with Kumar, but I wanted it to be in Malayalam, to be honest. I actually went to Kumar five years ago, even before he started thinking about Super Deluxe, and told him 'Let's do a film in Malayalam', and I got him all the way to Kochi, but it didn't work out and he went back to Chennai. Then, he called me for Super Deluxe. I was very sceptical, because if you do this film with a person who can think and speak in Tamil, you can do wonders with the character, so I kept pushing him to do it with another actor, but he was adamant and kept saying that it was just language. One thing I realised when I was doing the film is that I started speaking in Tamil. If I spend time there, I'll get used to the language, that is what I realised. The thing about Tamil is that it is a very beautiful language and to learn it by rote is very easy. It's like learning a song. (...)
AC: Which role took the most out of you?
All the roles. (...) It is amazing to get people to react to your emotions or smile at you. And I discovered this much later in my life. I was not ready to be an actor or anything, and I am a person who tasted success much too late in my career and once I tasted it, the entire connection became very beautiful. So, for me, it is very important to feel for the character and the story. I need to believe that this is something that could happen or that has happened and I need to feel the connection to that story or plot.
BR: Your father launched you, things didn't work out, you took a break of eight years and came back. What was your frame of mind at that point?
After my first film didn't do well and I decided to go to the US, I had this conversation with my father. My father introduced Mohanlal. So when I spoke to him, he told me that I have an acting rhythm and that if I was actually planning to take up acting, I should do it in a way that it is happening from my stomach and not from my brain, and that was a very interesting advice. It is about how you see things and how you want to see things. So, I want to feel for the character and then emote. (...) I turned 19 during the shoot. To be honest, if that film had worked, I don't think I would have come this far. I would have been a star for 10 years and then I don't know what would have happened. Because the film didn't work, at least I am trying to be an actor, and that makes a huge difference.
AC: Fahadh, I loved the fact that Nazriya [Nazim, moglie di Fahadh] proposed to you on the sets of Bangalore Days. Please tell us that story.
Yeah, there is another side to it, but okay (laughs). It was new for me to see a girl that wasn't excited about meeting Fahadh Faasil. I had to do things to get her attention and I think I fell in love with that. I would walk into sets and the first thing I would want to see is if she was looking at me. So, I took initiative but she asked me out because she knew that I didn't have the guts to ask her. The two good things that I did after coming into cinema is getting married to an actress and starting a production house. (...)
AC: Now that you have gone to Tamil, would you be interested in Hindi, perhaps?
For me, the fact that my Malayalam films are watched in Mumbai, and that I get these messages and beautiful calls from people in the same industry is itself a big thing. (...) None of my films are made into any other language, because they are very rooted. My cinema is here. I would love to interact with Meghna Gulzar and Zoya Akhtar. There are so many brilliant directors that I'd love to work with, and there are so many films that are so good. If you ask me, Piku was the best film to have released in the last decade. I absolutely love it, the performances and the way it is made. (...)
BR: Speaking of Kumararaja, did he actually make you do 200 takes?
That's his average. With me, it has gone to 500-550 shots and what is interesting is I know I would have done around 60-65 takes for him and he would come and say that 'In the 17th take the look was perfect but in the 12th take, I liked the rendering, but as a whole I liked the 35th take'.'
