KV Anand would have certainly been happy with my work: Jagan

Actor Jagan’s recently-released micro series Aanandham Aarambam that streams on Disney+Hotstar has opened to positive reviews and has been a delightful watch. The actor, who turns director for the first time with this show, explains the concept of micro series, which is a first-of-its-kind. “Each episode is between four and six-minutes. 

Hotstar has come up with this refreshing concept for the first time as a part of brand promotions. For Aanandham Aarambam, the OTT platform collaborated with a leading instant coffee brand. We need to promote the brand, which is built around meaningful content. Gone are the days where brand building happens only through TV advertisements that say try this coffee. People need much more than that to convince them. Aanandham Aarambam is the first step towards that and if it clicks, other OTT players too will take the cue. 

The series has Santhosh Prathap and Abirami Venkatachalam in lead roles with interesting characters around them. Jagan feels that even four-minutes meant a huge liberty for him. “I was approached to prepare the script by the OTT platform along with other brands. I was into ad creation where I had to tell a story in a minute or even less than that. So when I was given five minutes on average, I used it to weave a nice story around it. I had a one-liner before I started off the script in November. I took one hour to write a story and the process became much easier once I started knowing my characters well,” he opens up. The chemistry between Santhosh and Abirami has been much-talked about on social media and has been a trendsetter of sorts. “When I first told them the story, they liked it. 

As a director, my success is to make the audience believe that they are real-life couples. I saw them as Ram Charan and Ranjini and not Santhosh and Abirami. We had a three-day workshop prior to the shoot. But they came up with their own improv on the sets,” he adds.

Jagan, who is helming a project for the first time, says that he picked up the nuances of making a good story from director KV Anand, who passed away last year. “I don’t know if he would have been proud. He would have certainly been happy. It was after the second day of shoot I realised that I picked up certain mannerisms and quirks from KV,” he concludes.