I would never say ‘no’ to an aspiring director: Varalaxmi

The team of Velvet Nagaram is all smiles as they walk into our office to talk about their film. Manoj breaks the ice and says, “The story revolves around forest fire. I had penned the script way before the Amazon forest fire. When we decided to work on the film, Kurangani forest fire happened, which claimed the lives of 11 trekkers.” Varalaxmi says that she found the content interesting, especially since it was that of an aspiring director. “Even when I do commercial films, I would still want the audience to have takeaways from it. This script talks about a social cause and I play a journalist in the film. The story starts on East Coast Road (ECR) and then travels to another terrain,” Varalaxmi tells us. After being a part of films helmed by ace directors like Murugadoss and Lingusamy, the actress spills the beans on why she doesn’t think twice to work with a debutant director like Manoj. “Today’s ace directors were debutants once. They are here today because artistes believed in them. So, I never say ‘no’ to any new director. And Manoj’s vision was clear right from the beginning,” she adds. Varalaxmi has played the journalist for the first time in her career. However, she denies prepping up for a role. “Any artiste would be lying if they say that they did their research for the role or preparing for it prior to the shoot. Once we are on the sets, it’s all about the day’s scenes and how we emote it,” she says with a smile.

When Manoj was asked if Varalaxmi would be seen performing daredevil stunts in the film, he says that Velvet Nagaram will show the other side of the actress. “You would have seen her fighting villains and even heroes in her previous films. That is not the case in Velvet Nagaram. She is the one who gets beaten up and the best thing about Varalaxmi is she doesn’t use glycerine when there is an emotional scene. I wonder how tears start rolling down her eyes immediately after the cameras start rolling,” he laughs. Varalaxmi says, “Yes, I can cry without glycerine in front of the camera. Even the single drop tear you saw in Sandakozhi 2 was a single take shot.” Santhosh Krishna adds that the entire unit would think twice before approaching the actress. “We all thought she was a serious person. However, we learnt that she was such a fun person to work with on the sets. We would all laugh once Manoj says ‘action’. Despite all the fun we had, we managed to finish the film as planned,” he concludes as Varalaxmi immediately picks her mobile up to follow the Women’s T20 World Cup.