AN INTERVIEW WITH REVATHI

The only difficulty is everybody was too precise, going into minute details. Sometimes you wonder, why do you have to get into minute details? At the same time it is very good for the film. When you go into details, you look at different angles from different perspectives. One thing that I later thought about was, if I had chosen a usual crew, and if I was the only woman in the crew, I would have to stay all alone in the US. All the others would have stayed together and I would have been alone. Here the four of us were together. Sudha, Fowzia, Prabha and me were all together. Everything was discussed and done together, that was a big advantage for me. Since for all of us it was the first time, we gave it our best. Now nobody can say that you had an experienced person with you, it's because of that. Now it's our product, it's a team effort. I somehow enjoyed it, now I can't think of another group. Especially, with the kind of films that I have done, I have very rarely had women colleagues of my age working with me, because I have basically done movies where the story revolves around me. I have very rarely worked with another person who was my age. So, this was great fun.

It is not at all technical; it is more on the creative aspect. And every film is the point of view of that specific director. You have certain rules, and that's it. Otherwise a film is according to the perspective of the concerned director. Whoever the writer is, whoever the other technicians are, they all contribute. But in the end, the whole film shapes according to the way the director sees it. As far as an actress is concerned, this is a profession where, when you are in front of the camera, you are a different character, but of course you do not get too many characters where you have to change your whole self. There are very few. I have been very lucky, because I got the chance to play a few roles where I had to really change my whole personality. But it happens only when I am in front of the camera; otherwise I do not change myself. I am myself. I really do not understand what that means...getting into the skin of the character! Change your whole self for those few months. Because basically, you are doing two or three films at a time, it is very rare that you are doing only one movie at a time.

An actor's input has to be there. That is why a particular actor is chosen for a role. If a Suhasini is put, it is because you get some inputs from her for the character, if Radhika is given the role, it's because you get certain inputs...when a character is conceived, even then you decide whether Suhasini should do the role or Radhika should do it. It is because of the kind of input you receive from that particular actress for the particular character.

That happens by chance. It happens; if I do a negative role, people will not accept it. Because I have done only positive and strong roles, but it is up to me to decide, whether I want to do it or not. Even if I want to do it, they do not let me do it. Basically the director is the captain. The actress may not know the whole film. The actress will know her part and the actor will know his part. But only the director knows the whole film. Only he knows visually how the whole film is going to look. In the end the decision is the director's. And only if the decision is the director's, it is good for the film. Otherwise it will go in ten different directions. The film will not have a holistic look.

Hollywood is a different thing, we cannot compare with Hollywood. We make 800 films they make 200. And a Director makes one film in a year or one film in two or three years. Here it is totally different. A director makes two-three films at-a-time sometimes. Plus, there once the actor receives the script, you would have heard in interviews that, they have read the script at least seven times before they went to the sets. Once they are on the set, they do not need to look at the script; they have their lines by heart. Every single person, even... here they call them junior artist; there they call them extras. Even the extra will have the line. And they do not have to look at the script. And the Director does not go and teach them acting; the Director basically sits and watches the performance and if the shot is right or wrong. Because, there are certain things they would have already decided with the actors, you have a storyboard; each shot is drawn, as to where the actor should stand, because they have already done a research on the location. The Director here wouldn't even have seen the location before we land with the whole unit.

The whole process is different, I cannot say this is bad and that is good and vice versa because, certain things happen when you improvise, when things happen spontaneously, they might turn out to be much better. There have been actors, directors who have done better because of spontaneity. There is nothing like good or bad in this. I feel that art has no rules, only if you break rules it is art as far as I am concerned. Except for some technical aspects in cinema, which has rules, nothing else has rules. Here we never see the script, at times the Director will be writing the scene sitting on the sets, which we are going to be shooting in the next few minutes.

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