Indrajith Sukumaran on not being offered comedy roles and his challenges of doing a romcom

Malayalam actor Indrajith Sukumaran’s latest film Marivillin Gopurangal is finally hitting theatres on May 10. The romcom, which also has Sarjano Khalid, Vincy Aloshius and Shruti Ramachandran, is helmed by Luka director Arun Bose and promises quite a few comebacks - including that of veteran music director Vidyasagar and also Indrajith’s return to comedy roles.

In a quick chat with OTTplay, the actor talks about what excited him to sign the film and the challenges he faces while tackling this genre.

You have taken your sweet time to sign projects post pandemic. Your film Marivillin Gopurangal seems like an urban romcom; how different is it from the films that you have done recently?

I played a lot of cop characters in movies that I had done post pandemic. It wasn’t intentional; some of those movies I started before the pandemic. But all of them released back to back, including Kurup, Night Drive and Pathaam Valavu. Most of these were also serious genre films.

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Marivillin Gopurangal’s light-hearted comedy genre has been one of my favourites for a long time. I have always looked forward to doing movies in this genre and the characters that I have done so far have been loved. For instance, after Amar Akbar Anthony, I thought I would be flooded with comedy films. But for some reason, those types of characters haven’t come my way so much. That’s why I have been looking forward to doing such movies.

It’s a light-hearted family romcom; it revolves around four people who are a family. There’s my character and his wife, his brother and his girlfriend. All four of them stay together but they are all very different in terms of their personalities. It’s not a centrally structured film but focuses on each of their issues, and how they overcome that as a family unit forms the plot.

Because you said that these are the kind of roles that you look forward to, was there any challenge in doing this particular film?

The kind of challenge that stems while doing such movies is in how to improvise and how to amplify and sustain the energy between the actors. In these films, there’s a lot of scope to elevate what’s written in the script with your energy and performance. We discussed that on the spot with the directors and co-actors, and then shot the scenes. We can only improvise in such movies. If it’s a thriller or a drama, you have to stick to the script.

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My character in Marivillin Gopurangal was also very relatable to me, because I am also a married, middle-aged guy. A lot of Shinto’s traits are similar to mine. It was the same for Shruti (Ramachandran). We were sharing our experiences and that made working with the team fun too.

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The film’s director Arun Bose had earlier done Luca, and he has also worked with Unni Mukundan and Aparna Balamurali in an upcoming movie. His films have unique visual aesthetics and the trailer of this movie too promises that.

I don’t know how many people know this, but Arun is an artist. He draws, paints and even held an exhibition of his work in Fort Kochi earlier this year. He has that aesthetic, and in every frame, you could observe a design language. That was there in Luca too. He takes care of every minute detail in each scene. For example, in this film, I play an aspiring director in the movie. During the scenes, I would look at the books that were on my table and they were all handpicked by him for the character. So, he is someone who is very particular about all of that. It was great working with someone like him because that aesthetic will be there throughout the film.