Books about Vandiyathevan helped me understand the character: Karthi on his ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ role

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By PTI

23/04/2023

On this World Book Day, in a nod to the power of books to transport one to a different era, actor Karthi said books helped him better understand this popular Tamil literary character.

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On 22 April, some actors of Mani Ratnam’s multi-starrer, ‘Ponniyin Selvan 2‘ Trisha, Vikram, Karthi, and Jayam Ravi were interacting with the media in Bengaluru.

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Books establish a character in leisure, said Karthi, adding that when they are being made into a film, they have to be compressed and repackaged.

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“For me the difficulty was, it was a 3,000-odd pages book, which was compressed to 300 pages for a script.”

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I had to go back to the book and not just stick to the script. I used to read the scene from the book once and then the script, before coming for the shoot,” said Karthi.

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“There were no accounts of the common man anywhere in history. So, I had to read travelogues and Silappathikaram.

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Vikram too agreed that after he read the book it was possible to understand the many layers that made his character Aditya Karikalan.

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“When I was younger, I didn’t read the book but had only heard of Karikalan. For a long time, I believed from what I heard that Karikalan was called that because his leg was burnt.”

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“Later, I came to know that this is not true. Now, of course, I have read the book. Once you read the book, you see Karikalan in a different light.”

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