‘Beyond thrills, Surrender will be high on emotions’

CHENNAI: All eyes were on Tharshan and Padine Kumar as they entered our office to talk about Surrender. Director Gowthaman Ganapathy though quietly walks with them is a delight as soon as he begins talking about Surrender, when the team settles down for a chat with us. “Despite being a cop story, Surrender isn’t your regular cop thriller that is about chasing criminals or tracking a murderer. I would call this film an emotional drama where other elements would be a catalyst driving strong emotions,” says Gowthaman. The story is set in a police station backdrop and Gowthaman says that the audience would immerse themselves into the film. “Thanks to the sound effects. The story takes from two perspectives, one from the police station and other from that of a notorious gangster. The audience too would feel like they are one of the characters set in the police station while watching Surrender,” he assures.

Tharshan, who predominantly carries an on screen loverboy image, plays a cop for the first time in his career. “When Gowthaman told me about giving a narration, I told him about taking the narration at about six in the morning. I hardly had any idea about playing a cop. I definitely would have taken a step back had he given me a hint. 15 minutes into the narration, he said that I play a trainee sub-inspector in the film. It also means that I should go clean shaven and sport a moustache. My elder brother wrote me off saying that I will not pull the look off,” says Tharshan with a laugh. The actor then took a workshop to go about the role. “I trained for about four weeks, especially for the emotional scenes. I understood that being emotional is not about crying and it has more subtlety to it. Gowthaman was clear that Pugazh, the character I play, doesn’t cry irrespective of the situation. I even learnt how a trainee SI salutes. A lot of work went into getting into the skin of the character,” he adds. The film is backed by Upbeat Pictures.

Padine Kumar says that more than a female lead, her character arc is written in such a way that it could be called a pivotal role. “I am happy that my character takes Surrender’s story forward. It is not about the screen time but the impact it creates. It is a good time to be a female actor in the industry and after I did Surrender, I now want to be a part of more such scripts,” she tells us.

According to Tharshan he doesn’t want to be stereotyped. “After my first film, I received the worst criticisms and I was written off as an actor. All I wanted to become is a good actor. That is when Naadu came my way, and asked the director of Naadu, M Saravanan, whether he had watched Koogle Kuttappa and thought twice before casting me. It was Saravanan, who trained me and gave me the confidence to do different kinds of films,” the actor remarks.

Padine provides us a bit of laughter as she doesn’t want to give away the suspense behind her character. “I play a character called Umaiyaal, is all I can say. It’s a mellowed character and I leave it to the audience to predict what Umaiyaal does in the film on August 1,” she concludes.