The truth is, I wanted to surprise everyone, and I am happy that I did. Mysskin is a good friend of mine. I was very fascinated by the role. I asked him who is doing Daya's role? He said he was looking for a new face. Then I told him, can't I do the role? He was shocked that he just said, 'What? It's a villain's role.'

But I insisted. I told him that I didn't see myself as a hero or a villain, I considered myself foremost as an actor. After a long silence, he came up to me and hugged me. Then, we started working on the look, etc.

Did you expect this kind of reaction from the critics and audience?

To tell you the truth, I did. I knew the character would get good critical acclaim. I worked really hard on it and I was very confident too while doing the role. Just see how carefully Mysskin has created the character. Any other director would have had a rape scene!

How did you make him so menacing?

Both of us discussed a lot about how he should look. Because he is a pervert, we decided to give a feminine touch to him. So, we made him walk slightly like a woman. The long hair which covers my face most of the time was to give him a devilish look. Only my eyes and nose were visible. I don't know whether people have noticed but I wear the ring on my middle finger and he doesn't use that finger at all. Though we took care of such small details, we didn't want to exaggerate.

After always having done the role of a nice person, did you enjoy being the villain?

I enjoyed being a villain thoroughly. When I got into the character of that creep, I forgot that I was Prasanna. I literally felt like crying on the last day of the shoot. You don't get to do such roles often.

What next?

At present I am shooting a film called Achamundu Achamundu for Arun Vaidyanathan, a new director. His short films have gone to many festival circuits. This film will take Tamil films to international level. Except for myself and Sneha, all the others are going to be from Hollywood. The film will be shot in New Jersey.

After Anjathe, I have to be very careful about my films. I am going through scripts which will definitely be different from these three films. I am listening to a lot of scripts. I am confused and not very happy with most of the scripts. I have shortlisted two scripts and very soon they will be announced.

Do you take anyone's advice regarding films?

I take the advice of Prakashraj Sir and Siddique Sir regarding projects in general but not about the script.

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