Besides Unni, most characters in the film are grey or dark. Was it a conscious portrayal?
Yes, everyone needs to have a grey shade in them, they need to be shrewd, if not it will not be relatable to people. He is in a world of crooks, and he is the biggest crook. That helped the film.
While the voiceover elevates the comedy, something that stood out for me was the background score. The music was rather soothing in places where it would normally be thrilling. Tell us about the film’s music choices.
We wanted to travel with Unni’s mind and he is very calm. So the background score reflects his mind. The film was more of a silent and atmospheric film initially, so we did it without too much music. It is only while editing the film that I started thinking about how it will reach the audience. That’s when I added the voiceover. So, when the voiceovers were added, the scope for dark humour increased and that’s when the entire pattern of the background score changed.
Was the climax fixed when you wrote the first draft?
The first thing I told Vimal was the climax. I told him I wanted to tell the journey of such a character and the film should end like this. We had another profession in mind but when I told Vimal the climax, he was of the opinion that the climax was really good and we could make that person a lawyer.
Did anyone want you to change the climax?
Some producers who came on board wanted to change the climax but I didn’t want to. The climax was the most important part of the film.
So was there difficulty in finding producers and casting actors?
It wasn’t difficult for me to find producers because I have been an editor for some time. The producers trusted me. But casting an actor has always been an issue because I don’t socialise much and I don’t have many actor friends. I am more of an introverted guy, so I didn’t have a wide network. And networking is important when you are casting. I couldn’t get people to trust me as they didn’t know me personally. And that is when I went back to Vineeth Sreenivasan.