Vishal on Magudam, a 14-month freeze and the people who stayed

A week before Magudam opens, Vishal stood in front of the press and skipped the usual promotional script. What came out instead was closer to an accounting: of the fourteen months he sat at home unable to act, of the people who kept him upright through it, and of the 35-year-old directing dream that finally has a release date. Magudam reaches theatres August 14, with the Telugu version going out as Makutam.

“Every actor faces a critical, tough phase in their career at some point,” he said. “When everyone wrote me off, I sat at home for almost fourteen months unable to act. Due to certain people, which I don’t wish to talk about now.” He left the villains of that stretch unnamed and spent his time instead on the people who showed up. First among them, his partner Sai Dhanshika. “For one year, my personal life was severely affected. The person who stood by me through my hardships, encouraged me, and made me stand before you today so positively is my partner, my pillar of support, Sai Dhanshika. If it were anyone else in her place, they would have packed up and run away by now.”

Vishal at the podium, wrist brace and all, with one of his three Magudam avatars looming behind him.

The other two names he kept returning to were R.B. Choudary and distributor Tirupur Subramaniam. It was Choudary’s call that broke the silence of those fourteen months, and the thank-you now doubles as a tribute: the Super Good Films founder died in a road accident this May, and Magudam goes out as the banner’s 99th production with his sons among the producers. Vishal, by his own count, becomes the 45th director the house has debuted. Of Subramaniam he said: “When someone lifts you up when no one else is around and says, go, work, you can do it, that encouragement is the main reason behind the success of Magudam. More than saying thanks, I am indebted to him.”

The film itself asks a lot of him. Vishal plays three roles, a corporate professional, a gangster and an elderly assassin with a thing for Ilaiyaraaja, all three of which stare out from the event backdrop. Directing himself through that, he admitted, did strange things to his head. “Being in front of the camera and behind the camera, at times I felt like I developed a split personality. I have to act, and while acting, I tell all the artists: I’ll say start camera action, and after a second, you start acting, because I need that edit point.” Then the walk to the monitor, the playback check, and back into frame to act again.

Anjali, a friend of fifteen years by Vishal’s count, plays one of the film’s two female leads alongside Dushara Vijayan.

The craft stories were the best part of the speech. From Bala, Vishal says he learned how to get work out of actors, including the sly move of rolling the camera before the performer knows the take has begun. “Sir, just look there, sir. Now look here, sir. Okay, cut, moving on. He asked, you didn’t take the shot? No sir, it’s taken. Your eyes were what mattered.” When a scheduling crunch left him with Dushara Vijayan only until 10:30 on a day planned around her until 2, he threw out the master shot, put up two cameras and shot her close-ups first, a piece of set triage he says he learned watching Sundar C. “Sundar C sir can shoot in a normal location and make it look like a song shot in Switzerland. He never gets flustered.” The sequence wrapped before she left; Vishal and cinematographer Richard M. Nathan, a collaborator going back years, spent the reclaimed hours over lunch.

Music got its own extended thank-you. G.V. Prakash Kumar skipped the event entirely, and Vishal was delighted about why: “Background score work is going on right now. If I pull him out from the studio now, my film won’t release on the 14th.” What he valued most was the room the composer gave a first-time director. “Otherwise a newcomer has to stand outside with folded hands, wait for whatever song the composer gives, and quietly go shoot it. It wasn’t like that here.” Choreographer Azhar apparently extended the same courtesy when Vishal started demonstrating steps mid-rehearsal, telling the team to follow whatever the director was doing and walking off. Lyricist Uma Devi, who confessed to nerves over the brief, wrote the song that leads into what Vishal claims is a climax no Tamil film has attempted. “Normally, Vishal comes, fights the villains, and takes revenge. But no. There is a unique climax scene, something that hasn’t appeared in any film before.” The final stretch also folds in Ilaiyaraaja: “I am a huge fan. I have used his iconic music in a specific way in this film.”

John Vijay, whose real-life swagger Vishal says he lifted wholesale for the character.

John Vijay earned the evening’s longest detour. Vishal has known him since Loyola College, where the older man once strolled past a club’s couples-only door policy in a lungi, shirt and Ray-Bans while Vishal and his friend stood outside without the required girlfriend. “We were dumbfounded. Who on earth is this guy? What an attitude! Even today he maintains that exact same attitude. That’s precisely what I tapped into and used for his character in this film.” On set, he added, John Vijay hands over takes and variations by the plateful: “Everything would be good, but you can’t eat everything on the table. You only eat according to your hunger.”

The directing ambition, Vishal traced all the way back to a school screening of Ram Gopal Varma’s Siva, released in Tamil as Udhayam. The debt he named most emphatically was his father’s: when a teenage Vishal wanted to assist Arjun, his father stood waiting at a shoot for four and a half hours to ask for the chance in person, despite knowing the actor for years. Arjun later pushed his assistant in front of the camera. And his mother, by his telling, greenlit Sandakozhi over his father’s budget objections: “Are you spending the money, or am I? I listened to Lingusamy’s script, and this film is going to make my son a huge action hero.”

The August 14 date behind them is doing the real talking: Magudam takes the Independence Day weekend.

The tagline on the trailer, sometimes the best revenge is to smile, has evidently migrated from the film into the man. “Even right now, as this event ends, there are hurdles waiting outside. Even now, my only response is that smile. No need to get tense, just smile, that’s all.” He was clear that the silence on his difficult stretch has an expiry date, and named it. Once the film is out, he intends to talk: “After August 14th, there are many things I must share with you. It is my duty as well. Mark your calendars for the 16th, Sunday. On that day, I will speak about a lot of things.”

Two of the three Vishals on the poster behind the one who directed them all.

Until then, the film does the talking. Magudam, with Anjali, Dushara Vijayan, John Vijay and an ensemble that includes Jayaprakash, Vamsi Krishna and Abu Salim around Vishal’s three roles, opens worldwide on August 14, straight into August’s most crowded weekend.