He comes across as an unassuming actor who speaks his heart and has passion for his craft. Dinesh, who is genuinely pleased to have been part of Cuckoo, which is releasing today, opens up on his experiences shooting for the film.
“I had acted in a film titled Dhasayinai Thee Chudinum before Atta Kathi. It is shot in black and white and is an ahead-of-its-time movie directed by Vijay Prabhakar. Later, I auditioned for Atta Kathi and got in touch with Ranjith, who was also from the theatre circle like me. After Atta Kathi, I chose to wait for my next film as I wanted to work only with Ranjith or Vijay Prabhakar, who was the director of Dhasayinai Thee Sudinum, an unreleased film which I had shot even before Atta Kathi. I’m bad at communication and these two were the only people with whom I felt comfortable. It was at that time that Ranjith told me to go to Fox Star’s office and meet Raju Murugan. I’m not a reader so I did not know anything about him. When I opened his office door, there were only sounds of laughter and I instantly liked him. I don’t have the ability to judge a script but after Raju Murugan narrated the script, I thought that I’ll love working on this project. The director, too, seemed a nice human being, with a reassuring attitude,” recalls Dinesh on how he landed the film.
He plays Tamizh, a visually-challenged person, who he terms as a glass-half-full character. “In a scene in the film, a person will remark, ‘You haven’t seen light since birth’ and he will smilingly quip, ‘I haven’t seen darkness ever’,” he reveals. The female lead Suthanthirakodi is also visually-challenged but is a confident girl. The film is about their romance but will show them as normal human beings and “is a celebration of life itself”, he says. “The director always stressed that we should approach this subject with emotion than with intelligence, but at the same time, we shouldn’t manipulate the viewer,” he adds.
The actor had attended a two-month workshop with visually-challenged persons which the director had organized, which helped him pick up clues on how to approach the role. “On the first three days of the shoot, I worked with my eyes looking normally. The cameraman PK Varma suggested that I could look away from the camera to give the effect of a visually-challenged person. The decision to move my eyeballs to one side happened gradually. In theatre, we used to rehearse for days and build a character’s mannerisms. Similarly, here, we were trying out various styles and when I showed the director this look, he said we could retain it throughout the film,” he says.
He adds, “The ADs and most of the crew have been working on the film for a year and so they knew a lot about the film and the characters, while Raju Murugan had lived with this script for six years. So, they helped me with the smaller but significant details — how to use the stick, keeping the shoulders unbalanced by pushing the right shoulder slightly to the front and so on. There were also actual visually-challenged persons who were part of the film, like Ilango and I observed his mannerisms and incorporated them in my body language.”
One of his cherished moments during the shoot was lip syncing to the voice of maestro Ilaiyaraaja. “I haven’t sung before but I enjoyed the list of songs that the director had chosen for my character. They were all songs in the voice of Ilaiyaraaja, like Nilavathaan En Kayila Pudichen, Idhayam Oru Kovil… It used to take two hours to reach the shooting spot from my place and throughout the entire journey, I used to play these songs and observe the minute details in Raaja sir’s voice. It was a great feeling to lip sync to Raaja sir’s voice and there were times when my eyes turned teary on their own. I enjoyed shooting those scenes,” he says.