With C U Soon winning praise, Roshan Mathew breaks down how he overcame his mental block to execute Indias first computer screen film.
Roshan Mathew
The lockdown may have ground our lives to a halt, but ironically, it has accelerated Roshan Mathew's career. If the web films Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai and Kappela introduced a pan-India audience to his talent, the recent release C U Soon marked his union with Fahadh Faasil, arguably one of the most experimental artistes of our times. Over a week after the Amazon Prime Video movie opened to positive reviews, Mathew admits he had his share of apprehension about executing India's first computer screen film. "I loved the script but had no idea how we were going to pull this off during the lockdown. A week after they [Faasil and director Mahesh Narayanan] approached me, we sat down to discuss the finer details," recounts the actor.
Surprising as it sounds, Mathew says the biggest hurdle stemmed from his discomfort with video calls. "I am uncomfortable with video calls or even a regular phone call. So, it is scary when you are suddenly thrust in a situation where you have to do an entire film on video calls. I am scared when I have to act without a co-actor; I depend a lot on him/her."
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Shooting amid the prevalent restrictions was an uphill task — he describes the experience of exploring the novel treatment as "a school project that we all were working on together". "While there were curfews, we managed to move around to get the outdoor shots. For the call scenes, we moved into four different apartments in the same building and the movie was shot within those spaces," explains the actor.
Even as he wins praise for the recent Malayalam outing, Mathew considers Choked as the turning point for him — the Anurag Kashyap-directed film, after all, marked his foray into Bollywood. "After the film, there has been attention from that side. People reached out to me with comments, appreciation, which didn't happen earlier," he says.
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