Ananth Mahadevan’s upcoming film Rough Book that takes a hard look at the education system may be in news for having nailed several issues through an entertaining film. But what’s also creating a buzz is the film’s unique casting. The film that has got a thumbs-up at various film festivals internationally boasts a rather quaint ensemble cast.
So, while on one hand, there is the talented dynamo Tannishtha Chatterjee and many theatre seniors including Kaizad Kotwal, Suhasini Mulay, Vinay Jain, Joy Sengupta, on the other hand all the students are actually first-time actors, except the protagonist, Amaan F Khan, who is one-film-old.
Talking about it, Mahadevan points out that the contrast itself made it a very interesting concept. He elaborates, “It was not a conscious decision to make it a senior versus junior kind of a thing, but I was sure that I wanted certain raw and fresh appeal when it came to showing students. I didn’t want actors to behave like students, I wanted young kids to just be themselves and so we cast actual students.
The contrast shines beautifully though, as there’s a perfect balance between the seasoned and the young and the restless, very much like the essence of the film.”
The director is also praise for the newbies as he feels that they have pulled off their roles with amazing ease. “They have played their parts beautifully,” he says.
No workshops please, says Ananth Mahadevan
Ananth Mahadevan is a zara hatke director. Not only has he pitted a bunch of newbies in front of theatre giants in his upcoming film Rough Book that also stars Tannishtha Chatterjee, but unlike many filmmakers he had very few workshops prior the shoot of the film.
Explaining why, Mahadevan says, “The idea of casting newbies as students was to capture their restlessness and raw energy on screen. We didn’t want it to look trained or restrained at any point. Hence we had workshop only to help them understand the characters. We didn’t want them to even learn their dialogues.”
And seems like the director’s mantra worked big time too. As the film that has been screened at several film festivals internationally has only been garnering accolades on all fronts.