Trisha on her long-delayed Tamil horror-thriller Mohini: It’s the most challenging project of my career

The long-delayed Tamil horror-thriller Mohini, which features Trisha in a dual role, is finally set for theatrical release this week. Produced by S Lakshman Kumar of Prince Pictures, the film also stars Jackky Bhagnani, Suresh and Poornima Bhagyaraj in key roles. In a press interaction on 22 July in Chennai, Trisha explained why it’s the most challenging project of her career. [caption id=“attachment_4806771” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Trisha Krishnan. Image from Twitter/@trisha_karthick[/caption] “Firstly, I’d like to thank producer Lakshman and director Madhesh for giving me this film. It’s a heroine-centric film in my favorite genre, which is horror. What’s really exciting about this project is that I’m playing dual roles for the first time in my career. It was challenging and fun at the same time to play diverse roles,” Trisha said, adding that the project was extremely hard to make. “Nearly 90 percent of the film was shot in London, so you can imagine the logistics involved in shooting in a new territory. This is also a project with a lot of action. I’ve done stunts in my career but haven’t done action on this scale before.” In the film, Trisha plays two characters – Vyshnavi and Mohini. Asked if she has a personal favorite among the characters, she said: “I like both the characters equally. But, Mohini is special because I haven’t done such a role so far. I worked really hard to pull off this character.” Talking about the film, Madhesh said it’s a horror-thriller that also addresses an important social issue. Explaining why he signed Trisha in the titular role, he said: “Heroism is always told from the hero’s perspective. We wanted to showcase it from a heroine’s perspective and Trisha was the best choice. We are addressing a very important social issue and we felt it will reach far and wide when it’s narrated from a heroine’s perspective. It is a very touchy subject and saying it from a woman’s point of view will have a stronger impact.” In an earlier chat with Firstpost, Madhesh had said that Mohini has a generous dose of comedy to cater to the masses. “This is not your typical horror film. Unlike most horror stories that usually unfold in a haunted house, Mohini’s story will take audiences on a unique ride. We’ve also shot it aesthetically to ensure it doesn’t look gory on screen.” He said Mohini is no less than any commercial film with a well-known hero. “As I said I before, you replace Trisha with any hero and this film will still work. But I took it as a challenge to make the film click with her. Since I come from Shankar’s school of filmmaking, we’ve made Mohini as commercial as possible. It features the kind of action no southern heroine has attempted on screen before.” Talking about the action sequences and how Trisha scored well with her performance, he said: “A lot of action in this film required Trisha to be attached to a harness. I know heroes don’t like the idea of using harness because it’s not a pleasant experience. When you’re attached to a harness, you feel like your body is being pulled from all directions. But Trisha didn’t have any qualms and she placed her faith in me. The action scenes have come out very well. Audiences will be stunned by her on-screen transformations.” The film is high on VFX and Madhesh points out that an underwater action sequence will be a subject of discussion. “We worked with the same crew that worked on the visual effects for Harry Potter films. Mohini has the scope for advanced VFX visuals and we also worked on a separate audio script to enhance the overall auditory experience while watching the film.