A dream come true: Director Rahul Ramachandran on working with Suresh Gopi

Director Rahul Ramachandran is excited like a child as he got the dates of Suresh Gopi, one of the celebrated stars of southern cinema, so early in his career. “I can’t express my feelings in words,” he told Opoyi with great confidence and happiness.

Also Read: Actor Mohanlal unveils first-look poster for Suresh Gopi’s 251st movie

“I have seen Suresh Gopi sir from childhood. He is there in the Malayalam film industry for last so many years so it’s like a lifetime achievement working with him. I am completely excited as I can’t believe it is happening finally. The talks were happening for three to four years and finally, it’s a dream come true moment for me,” he added.

On his 63rd birthday on June 26, Suresh Gopi announced his 251st film. It has been tentatively titled ‘SG251’ and is tipped to be a drama- thriller. The poster has piqued the interest of the audience.

Talking more about details and if he had inhibitions of directing the superstar, Tarmacadam says, “The shooting will start from February 2022 so I am completely excited how I am going to suggest my comments to him. As of now, we went through some discussion and he never made me feel like he is a superstar. He is very down to me and with my writers. If there is any correction, he always says that ‘can I suggest you something’ instead of telling us to change it.”

The director says it’s going to be a big task to make the film keeping in mind the kind of  huge fanbase of Suresh Gopi.

Also Read: On Ilayiraja, Maniratnam’s birthday, listen to these evergreen songs of the duo

“He has got an immense fan base in Kerala so his fan is expecting something different from him. They all are waiting for the movie so I have a very big job to do. I should make sure that all the fans as well as the normal audience come and watch the movies in theatre so it’s going to be a very big task for me.”

Tarmacadam is also planning to launch a concept trailer for the film, something that was not done in Malayalam cinema before.

“We are planning to come up with Concept trailer which we have never tried in Malayalam film . we have seen that in Lokesh Kanagaraj’s ‘Vikram’ starring Kamal Haasan sir so we are planning something similar in Malayalam film so we are super excited for that,” he said and added that “as everyone knows that Gopi sir has a fan base both in Tamil Nadu as well as in Telugu film industry so we are planning to this in Tamil and Telugu as well.”

The young filmmaker also says that gone are the day when superstars used to just work with established names.

“Just see the last film done by Lokesh who is very new in the industry. He came up with a film with Vijay sir and now doing a film with Kamal Haasan sir. Karthik (Subbaraj) is doing a movie with Rajinikanth sir so if you have a good product, any celebrity is ready to listen to you but yes, there is a process to it. We have to wait for our time to sit in front of them. 

“They are completely open for all young directors,” said Tarmacadam, who did his first film in 2019 that didn’t do well at the box office.

Also, with the emergence of Over the Top (OTT) platforms and southern cinemas doing well across languages, cinema from across India has united like never before.

The young director agrees and says that “I was a person who used to watch all the movies. However, in my house, my mom also started watching all the other language movies and series so that is like a big changing that happened recently. So this OTT thing is a very blissful thing and it’s very easy now,” he said.