Rajinikanth will be the real game changer this time - Soundarya Rajinikanth

After his blockbuster Twitter debut, God Rajinikanth will make his special effect laced appearance on Indian cinema screens, this Friday with Kochadaiiyaan. Directed by his daughter Soundarya, much is riding on Rajini and Kochadaiiyaan which is being billed as the Indian version of Avatar as far motion capture technology goes. Tellychakkar.com met the debutant director Soundarya, for a brief chat at a suburban five star recently, where she spoke to us about the movie and her father, Rajinikanth. Excerpts from the interview: Tell us, what was the experience of directing your father Rajinikanth in your first film like and did he agree to do the film just because you are his daughter? It’s every director’s dream to direct Rajinikanth and I feel privileged to do that in my first film. And my being his daughter was not the criteria of him accepting to do the movie. It is only after he was fully convinced about the script and the technology did he agree to do the film. After the massive success of Robot, why was Aishwarya Rai not cast opposite Rajinikanth for this film? Well, repeating the combination is something people like, but they also like to see variety. Deepika was cast in Rana with my father. That film got shelved and we decided to do the prequel which is Kochadaiiyaan. Even in Kochadaiiyaan, the character of Rana exists. So when the characters are still the same, casting Deepika was a natural thing. VFX heavy films have never had a golden run at the box-office. Do you think Rajinikanth can change that? I believe my father will be a game changer for animation in India because animation has not been understood in our country yet. It is still considered cartoon here. Animation is a process. It's a kind of a medium people use. Because of the lack of budget, time and trained technicians a lot of films have not done justice to what animation can do. I hope my father will be able to do that. In fact, I am confident that if at all there's anybody, who can break the myth that animation is not cartoon, then it is only Mr. Rajinikanth. Rajini sir is not that tech savvy, we hear. How difficult was it to explain the entire thing to him? Yes, it was difficult to make him understand. The process of animation is time-consuming and complicated. Normally, when you shoot a film, you have your script ready, the storyboard is in place, production and costume design, call sheets of actors and other things. Once you start shooting, you can watch what you have shot on the same day itself. With a performance-capture film, I had to first shoot with the actors and then convert it. Even after six months of shooting, I wasn’t able to show the film to my actors as I was still in the modelling, texturing, and lighting stage. My father says that he doesn’t understand technology because after six months of shooting he told me to show him how I have shot the song. I was, like, okay let me finish it and I will show it to you. He was a little worried because even after six months he couldn’t see a glimpse of the film! Animation is very difficult. In Kochadaiiyaan, every frame has 40 or 50 layers, like the poster, the palace, the crowd, the earrings, the teeth; all of them are separate layers so all these layers come together only after I finish my shoot. You must be thankful to your crew for supporting you in this endeavour, right? Oh yes! I had a wonderful team. I had a good, experienced crew. It's a performance capture film. The team called counter punch which worked on Avatar, worked for Kochadaiiyaan. Moreover, I had technicians like A R Rahman, Resul Pookutty. As this film is created, so the life has to come through sound and music which they brought in with me. I had a great pre-production in Chennai, and a great post-production team in London and China. So everything is a team work. I think I had the greatest crew. Your father is the only superstar who’s worshiped as a God. What separates him from his contemporaries? Each person has his own identity. He is worshiped because of the way he is and he is by far the most honest person you will ever meet. He will be the same to you and to somebody else. He is the same to the biggest to the smallest person. He is honest to himself and to what he does. He practices what he preaches. I cannot comment on what separates him from his contemporaries but I believe he has his true identity and he is what he is. How was it growing up as his daughter? In fact, he was already a superstar when I was born. Like any other star kid, my sister and I got a lot of attention. After a while, we got used to it. But my father was an extremely busy actor. It was my mother who played a very important role where she balanced our upbringing. Whatever free time my father had, my mother made sure we went on holidays. My mother is the reason my sister and I have our heads on our shoulders. She educated us about everything. She told us how big my father was in society and what people expected from us. There were times when he had a curfew at home. We had to return home at 6 pm. So that was how life was. Rajinikanth has won accolades worldwide but a National Award is still missing. What do you have to say? (Smiles) My father is beyond all that.