In a recent interview, the director of Suriya and Mamitha Baiju’s highly anticipated Vishwanath & Sons addressed the elephant in the room surrounding the film– the age gap between the leads, the experience of working with Suriya and the reason why Mamitha Baiju was the obvious choice for the film. The challenge was one he had set himself: telling a story about a romantic relationship with a significant age gap, as a happy and light tale. While writing, he aimed to ensure that by the end of the film, the audience should not be divided.
“Trying to establish a taboo, but ending it right… I had to work a lot on that.”
He added that what made Suriya’s casting significant was that while other actors over the age of 30 choose not to address the fact, Suriya was willing to embrace his age on-screen, rather than avoid it. “Usually when an actor is post 30, they try to avoid their age. They don’t talk about their age on screen and just simply avoid it. But Suriya was very, very confident that he wanted to do that role.”
“Casting Mamitha opposite him brought in that cheerful and playful attitude. And with that, nothing will seem wrong.” He distinguishes how he wanted the relationship to read, explaining, “A girl loving a man versus a girl admiring a man is the whole difference between icky and poetic cute.”
The filmmaker also succeeded in getting Suriya to sing a song for the film, something he describes as wearing him down over multiple asks. Suriya initially declined, then agreed to give the Tamil version a shot; and once he got the Tamil version of the song down, the director convinced him to record the Telugu version of the song as well.
Speaking about the kind of film Vishwanath and Sons would be, he noted, “I feel there are all kinds of stories to tell when it comes to people falling in love. We’ve been telling the same conventional love story over and over again, and I wanted to explore something different.”
Also starring Radikaa Sarathkumar, Raveena Tandon, Nasser, Sudha, Raghu Babu, Sunil Reddy, Bhavani Sri, Viva Harsha, Kaali Venkat, George Maryan, Hyper Aadhi, and more, the film is gearing up to open in theatres on August 14.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter India, Cinema Express
