Twelve years after Kalapani, Mohanlal, Priyadarshan and Santhosh Sivan have come together for a project, albeit to extend support to their common friend and director Suresh Krishnan.
Suresh, who has served as Priyadarshan's associate for the last seven years, says that Priyadarshan and Santhosh were involved in the technical side of the movie called Nakhangal, featuring new faces, while Mohanlal was a strong moral support throughout the filming.
The movie features a cast that has extensively worked with the veteran National Award-winning filmmakers and Priyadarshan has even stepped in to help the film right from scratch.
"He has been a tremendous support throughout. In fact, he had also taken time off his busy schedule to film a Bollywood-style song for the movie with Oriya actress Jyothi Pani," says Suresh, adding that the director was also involved in the production and scripting.
Incidentally, Priyadarshan is no stranger to the idea of bringing in another director to shoot a song as he had earlier done it in his Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Billu, for which Santhosh had stepped in to film a song.
With the director's contribution being so large, the makers have decided to promote the film as a movie that Priyadarshan presents. Apart from him, Santhosh was also involved in the project with his associate Bejoy S serving as the cinematographer for the film.
"Santhosh sir took the first shot of the film. He was also present during the grading of the film, giving instructions and took it up as his own project," says Suresh, who has already four films in Mollywood.
As far as Mohanlal goes, he and the film's director share a close relationship. The megastar had also done a cameo in his film Achaneyanenikkishtam. "Lalettan is like a brother to me and he used to call up every day to check on how the shooting is progressing. In fact, all three of them had interacted with the actors and crew members," he says.
The crime thriller Nakhangal has a young cast with debutant Rakendu and Madan Mohan, who had starred in the Bollywood movie Rangrez, playing the male lead while Gujarat-based Malayali ramp model Megha stars as the female lead.
Sanjith Sidhardhan, TNN
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