I was surprised: Samyuktha on Tabu, Vijay Sethupathi, Puri Jagannadh
Actress Samyukta is excited about Slumdog: 33 Temple Road, praising Tabu and her effortless collaboration with Vijay Sethupathi under Puri Jagannadh. The pan-India action thriller is set for release in June.
Tamil actress Samyuktha is gearing up for her next release. Slumdog: 33 Temple RoadWith Vijay Sethupathi and Puri Jagannadh. Ahead of its release in June, the actor, in an exclusive conversation with India Today, opened up about sharing screen space with Tabu, collaborating with Sethupathi and working under filmmaker Puri Jagannadh for the upcoming action thriller.
Sanyukta on sharing space with Tabu
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Talking about Tabu, Sanyukta couldn’t hide her admiration and recalled how surreal it felt sharing the screen with someone she had grown up watching.
“She came with a lot of energy. I was amazed by her. She’s very beautiful – very, very beautiful. She looks just like she does on the screen. I’ve seen Kandukondain Kandukondain – He One of my favorite movies of his. Her South film with Mammootty sir, Aishwarya Rai madam and Ajith sir is a great film with a great album. This is a movie that has been my all-time favorite. I have seen his other films too, but when I saw that one, it felt different. Heritage This is also one of my favourites. I’ve always looked up to him, and then to see him in person – I was amazed. I was working with him, I was on set with him,” she said.
He further revealed how he interacted with the senior actor on the sets. “I didn’t really hesitate to break the ice. I’m just there like that. I went over and said, ‘Hello ma’am.’ I will not back down from this. Unless I feel like someone needs their space, I have so much emotional intelligence, but otherwise, I’ll just go and speak,” she added.
On his collaboration with Vijay Sethupathi
Talking about Vijay Sethupathi, Samyukta described him as “simple” and “cool” and someone who makes the work environment comfortable.
She said, “He is a very simple, calm person of very few words. I first met him at an event a long time ago. He doesn’t remember, but I remember because I was his fan. Then we met again on the sets of Puri sir’s film. We both were in our character looks. He was sitting under a tree and I also went and sat there. We just started talking.”
Samyukta also shed light on the process of preparing for the scenes with him. He said, “We had a very interesting scene – quite intense. Before you do something like that you have to understand what your character is feeling internally. My character is very intense – unimaginably intense in the film and very different from what I have done before. But she was very easy to work with.”
Samyuktha on working with director Puri Jagannadh
Sharing his experience of working with director Puri Jagannadh, the actor said that his style of filmmaking is distinctive for its pace and clarity. He said, “It’s a dream for any actor to work with him. He knows what he wants. This is the fastest set I’ve ever worked on. We plan a whole day’s shooting and finish it in half a day.”
He further added, “At first, the initial pack-up felt like a surprise, but after three days, I realized how it was going to be. Once, he appreciated us, saying that we come prepared, he just says ‘action’, we do the shot, and he likes it. Then we shoot the same scene in the other language. We (Vijay) will also decide on a Tamil or Telugu set first, and then go for it.
Samyukta leads Slumdog: 33 Temple Road opposite Sethupathi, while Tabu and Duniya Vijay Kumar play the lead roles. Brahmanandam and VTV Ganesh are also part of the cast. Shooting began in July last year, with major action sequences completed before the team completed principal photography in October.
National Award winning composer Harshvardhan Rameshwar is known for Arjun Reddy And AnimalScoring the music. The makers are planning a pan-India release in five languages – Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi.