It was Shriya who introduced me to K.V. Anand
gaaru after
Sivaji was released. When I did his
interview
at that time, he informed me that he was not doing Shankar's next film as he's planning to direct a film again. (He directed
Kana Kandaen in Tamil starring Sriram and Prithviraj, which was later dubbed into Telugu as
Karthavyam). After a few months, he informed that he was soon to direct Surya, the hottest star in Kollywood! And finally, last month, the film
Ayan released and went on to be the biggest hit in Surya's career, even surpassing
Ghajini. When I called him to congratulate on the success of the film, he informed that he was planning to come to the USA to attend a meeting in Los Angeles and that he'd be visiting his brothers living in the USA too. Though his schedule was tight, he readily agreed to spare some time to sit with me personally. We went to have a light lunch and sat for a couple of hours talking about movies. Excerpts of our conversation are presented to the readers of TeluguCinema.Com in the form of the current interview as the Telugu version of
Ayan, titled
Veedokkade, is gearing up for release.
Sri: How did the combination with Surya happen?
K.V. Anand: I knew Surya from the days of his debut with
Nerakku Ner (dubbed as
Mukhamukhi in Telugu), as I was the cameraman for that film. In my directorial debut film Kana Kandaen (
Karthavyam) too, he was supposed to Prithviraj's role but he was hesitant to do a negative role and opted to do Sriram's role instead, but I wanted to take him for the negative role itself. Thus, we dropped the idea of working together for that film and he promised to another film in my direction. When we accidentally ran into each other at a studio while shooting for Sivaji, he asked me if anything was ready yet. He liked the short story line I narrated and asked me to work on it. That's
Ayan (
Veedokkade) now.
Sri: So, how was working with Surya...
K.V. Anand: Simply put, Surya is a director's actor who has no hang-ups of a star, and he works really hard. I do not think any other hero would be ready to do scenes like getting beaten by a prostitute, but he did such scenes without a question. I thought people might not accept it, but the response was amazing. People's response was equally encouraging in the scene where Tamannah yells at him. Girls are going gaga over him during songs. I believe he also has a good fan following among college-going youth.
Sri: Tell me about the rest of the cast...
K.V. Anand: Tamannah was selected after watching
Happy Days. I liked her in that film and selected her for
Ayan (
Veedokkade). Our initial choices for the role of Akashdeep were Bollywood actors Arjun Rampal or Dino Moria. Dino was really expensive and Arjun was expensive too, but their dates were also not readily available. We then zeroed in on Akashdeep.
Sri: How are the collections of
Ayan?
K.V. Anand: I do not know the exact numbers, but the production house AVM says that it's the biggest hit among Surya's films so far! Times of India carried a special article on "unstoppable Surya".
