Karthi can effortlessly hold a conversation in Telugu, or at least it looks that way when we listen to him interact with a small group of journalists, getting into the details of his new film Khakee (Theeran Adhigaram Ondru in Tamil), scheduled to release on November 17. Talking to us a little later, he confesses, “I was struggling to explain. I think I could have discussed better had I been more comfortable with the language.” This self-effacing admission notwithstanding, Karthi remains one of the few actors who goes that extra mile to dub in Telugu.
Excerpts from a conversation with the actor:
There’s a certain rootedness that comes across in the trailer. Essentially Khakhee (Theeran Adhiragam Ondru) is a story that begins in Tamil Nadu and then moves to other regions. There’s a risk of a lot being lost in translation. How did the team work around it?
The film is based on true events that happened between 1995 and 2005. We present it as the story of a police officer in South India. The facts stay true, but we’ve changed a few things keeping with the film’s format. A film like Dangal is universal; though it narrates a story that happened in Punjab/Haryana, we like its inspirational story and its idea of celebrating the girl child. I am confident that this film too will appeal to a larger audience.
In the last few years, you’ve consistently dubbed in Telugu. What made you do that initially?
When Yuganiki Okkadu, the Telugu dubbed version of Aayirathil Oruvan released, I didn’t like dubbing for my character. Someone much older had done it and it didn’t have the flavour. I am not against dubbing artistes. But the way I say ‘hello’ will be different from someone else saying it; it comes from the mood of the character. It’s a creative job. From Awara (Paiyaa in Tamil) I insisted I will speak my lines in Telugu. Many people were doubtful if I should take the risk; they told me even Kamal sir hadn’t dubbed in Telugu for several years. I told the director to give me a chance and he could use a dubbing artiste if he wasn’t happy with my voice. Though people could sense the Tamil-accent, they appreciated my effort. I am still learning.
Were you familiar with Telugu prior to that?
My neighbour was a Telugu, so I knew a few words. But it was during the shooting of Aayirathil Oruvan that I was forced to learn. We shot for 100 days in Ramoji Film City and the unit hands only spoke in Telugu. So I began picking up words. While filming Awara, I was envious at how Tamannaah fluently spoke the language. I learnt from her and her make-up person as well.
Many of the characters I play are talkative — Oopiri for instance, so the dubbing process gets longer. I dub only four hours a day for a Tamil film, because my voice doesn’t stay strong for long hours. I work double the time for Telugu and sometimes have bad headaches. Oopiri was easier. I get caught while working on films like Shaguni and Khakee. As a politician or a cop, one has to speak administrative language. The writers are very patient and help me with the words. The effort is worth it, I feel, because a film is out there for a lifetime for people to watch. The love that I have received from the Telugu audience also inspires me to do it.
Tell us about the work that went into Khakee.
We form an opinion about police officers through what we see or read in the news, but we don’t really know about them and their lives. For this film, I met several officers and had long conversations with some of them. It’s amazing how they push themselves to work for 20 to 22 hours. Many films show a cop as a hero with limitless possibilities. But we’ve shown how cops work around their limitations. A series of gruesome crimes in the mid 90s took cops by surprise and it took the police from Tamil Nadu, with the help of their counterparts from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, 10 years to track down the culprits. Khakee shows cops as real people with a glimpse into their personal lives where they may not be idolised but treated as normal human beings. Rakul Preet Singh, here, plays a woman who wants to have a normal life with her husband.
Many of us went through training, with the help of police, to be fit enough to do the chase sequences. When I was doing Vikramarkudu in Tamil (Siruthai), I learnt about this case through a police officer. So when director Vinoth approached me for Khakee, I told him I am aware of the incidents. A lot of what we’ve shown here is from reality. A waiting sequence shows how cops wait for days, even months, to get a go-ahead signal.
Looking back at Cheliyaa (Kaatru Veliyidai), the reception wasn’t overwhelmingly good — both for the film and your work. How would you analyse it now?
VC wasn’t an easy character to understand. Mani sir was clear that it was an experiment, not a feel-good film like Alaipayuthey. VC has had a troubled childhood, lives in the moment and has had several relationships. He’s not normal. He’s also a fighter pilot. I learnt that fighter pilots train for four hours every day and wait for that war moment that may not come before they retire at 40. So much effort goes in vain. People cope with that frustration in different ways.
We weren’t showing relationship goals in our film. Many women messaged stating that they’ve been through abusive relationships and had moved away. Some of them raised questions of whether this film was our way of saying women should accept someone like VC. Are we selling that idea as true love? We were only showing his journey. He goes through turmoil, repents and wants to meet her once to apologise. He harbours no notion of being accepted because he’s been bad to her. It’s a surprise for him that she hasn’t moved on. VC’s character has traits of international war veteran films of the 60s where we see how those who return from war are unable to get back to ‘normal’ lives.
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