Vishnu Vishal on Tamil psychological thriller Ratsasan: 'It has opened me up a lot as an actor'

Four years since their successful collaboration in Tamil period comedy hit Mundasupatti, actor Vishnu Vishal and director Ramkumar have reunited for forthcoming psycho-thriller Ratsasan, which has already teased audiences enough with its impressive eerie promos. In this exclusive chat with Firstpost, Vishnu, ahead of the film’s release on Friday, opens up on the project, why he believes it has brought out his best performance till date and making a desi psycho-thriller film which he feels will appeal to all sections of the audiences. [caption id=“attachment_5324461” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Vishnu Vishal in a still from Ratsasan.[/caption] At the film’s audio launch last month, director Ramkumar revealed that over a dozen actors turned down the script of Ratsasan, which he initially felt won’t suit Vishnu. When he almost ran out of options, Ram turned to Vishnu and the latter didn’t think twice about accepting the offer. Vishnu had three solid reasons to do the film. “Firstly, I haven’t done a cop role. My decent victories have comes through films with different content. I’ve always believed audiences embrace different content and best examples are my own films such as Neerparvai, Mundasupatti and Jeeva. These are also films that changed me so much as an actor and helped me fight my inhibitions. Mundasupatti, for instance, gave me the confidence to do a full-length comedy script and that’s why I did a Velainu Vandhutta Velaikkaran which worked very well. Jeeva helped me open up emotionally. Third reason is whenever I’ve worked with a director I strongly believe in; it paves way to something positive. Ever since we did Mundasupatti, I’ve been telling Ram that we should work again. He kept saying that we will but when he finally told me that he has a script ready but that it won’t suit, I was slightly disappointed. When it finally came to me, I felt I was destined to work on it,” he said. It surprised many that Ram chose to do a psychological thriller after an out-and-out experimental comedy like Mundasupatti. Vishnu felt otherwise: “His stubbornness to do this project really impressed me. He could’ve safely done a sequel to Mundasupatti, but he was adamant about getting Ratsasan made at any cost. Also, he’s a bad narrator but his strength is in writing. He even captures the minutest of the detail in his writing, and that gave me the confidence that he can’t go wrong. Whether the film will run or not is not in our hands, but I confidently say we’ve made a good film.” At the audio launch, the film’s leading lady Amala Paul described the film as a home-grown, desi psycho-thriller. Elaborating more on this, Vishnu said: “The concept of psycho killers is very new to Tamil cinema. We’ve tried to make the film as accessible as possible to our audiences. We’ve tried to explain how psycho killers work and what drives them to kill. If more psycho-thriller films get made in Tamil cinema, our film could be used as reference.” Vishnu’s films have always been very audience-friendly. His movies have also catered to all sections of the audiences. Asked if he kept this angle in mind while working on Ratsasan, he said: “Even the story revolves around the pursuit for a psycho killer; you won’t find any killings in the film. We’ve brought in a social message by talking about the safety of women which I think will connect to women across age groups. Finally, the whole story treated very emotionally and that I believe is a very universal concept and should appeal to everybody.” On a concluding note, Vishnu feels he’s delivered his best performance yet in Ratsasan. “I’ve screened the film to a few friends and everyone felt it’s my best performance till date. Irrespective of how the film gets received in cinemas, I feel confident because now I can completely shoulder a film on my own. Ratsasan has also given me the scope to explore action which might come handy in the future as well.”