Prashanth prepped hard to play a blind pianist in Andhagan: Thiagarajan

Actor Prashanth, who was one of the top stars of the '90s and early 2000s is all set to make a comeback of sorts with Andhagan. The film, which is a remake of the Hindi film Andhadhun, directed by Sriram Ragavan, has an ensemble star cast. This includes Prashanth, Simran, Priya Anand, Karthik, Samuthirakani, Yogi Babu, Vanitha Vijayakumar, Manobala, KS Ravikumar,Urvashi, Leela Samson,Poovaiyar, Lakshmi Pradeep and SK Gopi to name a few. 

Andhagan is helmed by Prashanth's father, actor-director and producer Thiagarajan.The director, needless to say, is quite excited about his new venture. Speaking to a private television channel, Thiagarajan said that he struggled to get the remake rights of the film. "Prashanth knows how many times I had to travel back and forth just to acquire the remake rights. Everytime I went to Mumbai, the price would go up. There was a huge demand for the film, because the subject and treatment was such."

Talking about how Prashanth prepared for the film, Thiagarajan says, "Since he plays a blind pianist, it was important that we portray certain things correctly. You cannot afford to make anything look unnatural. This included how a blind person would use his or her walking stick,  how they would walk, search things or even look at their Braille watch. Prashanth went to many blind schools to prep for the character and met many blind people as well."

The director also reminisced about an incident about how Prashanth prepped for his film Aanazhagan way back in 1995. "This was the time when not many leading stars were ready to portray a woman. Prashanth practised Bharatanatyam for the character and learnt to drape a sari. He  would wax his body every day. One day during the shoot, some of my friends had come down from Mumbai. When they saw Prashanth sitting on the chair, they whispered in my ear asking who the girl was. He looked so natural as a woman."