Prithviraj Sukumaran on the process of making Empuraan: ‘I tell my actor that the script is ready only when...’

Actor Prithviraj Sukumaran is only 3 films old as a director, his third, L2: Empuraan, landing in theatres across the world on March 27, 2025. And yet, from the start, he’s had a process to his filmmaking – he's not in favour of a look book, reference log, doesn’t allow his cinematographers to use a LUT (look-up table for colour grading), and doesn’t do storyboards either.

Prithviraj Sukumaran on the importance of following the written text

Instead, what he is, says Prithviraj, is a studious filmmaker. “I land up on location with the exact number of shots I want. That is not born out of a story board, but rather from the script. If you closely follow the written text, it will tell you how to shoot it; you just need to bring in a layer of comprehension to the written word,” said Prithviraj in an interview with Galatta Plus.

He elaborated that when actor-writer Murali Gopy gives him a script, he spends a good 6 months writing his own version of it, which he calls the shoot script. This is where the actor-filmmaker changes things around – construction of a scene or the scene itself. At the end of that process, he narrates it to Murali, which tends to lead to disagreements, discussions and debates, until both of them reach a point of agreement. It is only then that he calls the actor or producer, as the case maybe, and says that the script is ready.

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Spending time on the script, added Prithviraj, gives him a deep understanding of the script, which then gives him the shot division in a clear format. Empuraan’s first cut after shoot was 3 hours and 1 minute, while the final product is only a minute shorter. Similarly, Lucifer, was 3 hours and 2 minutes that was cut down to 2 hours and 57 minutes. “That’s all I shot,” he said.

As for his intention in doing a film like Lucifer, Prithviraj said that he did it only for it to work in theatres, as that is one of the toughest things to do. “It’s a challenge I wanted to take up and thankfully it panned out the way it did. The success of the film, which is reported to have made in the vicinity of Rs 200 crore including theatrical and non-theatrical revenue, is down to it being “an honest film”.

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The actor-filmmaker says that when he made Lucifer, he thought of it as a one-off project as a director, to ‘get it out of his system’ and then move on as an actor. “But then, I enjoyed it a little too much,” he laughs.

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