Women Directors Don't Only Make Women-Oriented Films: Soundarya Rajinikanth On Directing VIP 2

Soundarya Rajinikanth is gearing up for the release of her action-packed directorial venture VIP 2 and she says she is happy that a female director was chosen for the commercial film.

“I sincerely wish the mindset that women filmmakers only direct women-oriented scripts should go away. VIP 2 is a commercial movie and I’m happy to have helmed the project as a female director,” said Soundarya.

The 32-year-old filmmaker, who made her directorial debut with Rajinikanth and Deepika Padukone’s motion-capture film Kochadaiyaan, says she wanted to break away from animation and do a feature movie as her second project.

“Kochadaiyaan was a photo-realistic performance-capture film. It was new to the Indian audiences, who still have the mindset that animation is cartoons. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working in both the mediums equally.”

On her next project, she says, “I’m not sure about my next project, but it will not be an animation film. It will again be a feature movie.”

Soundarya’s sophomore feature VIP 2 (Velai Illa Pattathari 2) stars her brother-in-law Dhanush and Bollywood actor Kajol.

The director says she would not categorize Kajol’s role in the film as a ‘villain’ and adds that the movie is primarily a clash between two strong-minded people.

“There is no villain as such in VIP 2. While Raghuvaran played by Dhanush is street-smart, an honest and straightforward character, Vasundhara Parameshwar essayed by Kajol is a very confident, self-made, independent woman.

“Vasundhara will not be a typical antagonist role. Their ideologies clash at a particular juncture in the film and what happens there onwards is what the story is about.”

Soundarya says the scene from the movie in which Kajol mouths a lengthy Tamil dialogue will be the highlight.

“It’s a big challenge for someone (Kajol) to act in a language they don’t know. There’s one scene in the film where Kajol has spoken a dialogue as lengthy as Dhanush’s, and I think that will be a highlight scene in the movie.”

Rubbishing rumours that Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai were initially approached for Kajol’s role, Soundarya says, “We never approached anyone for Kajol’s character. From the first day, Dhanush and I were quite keen on Kajol playing the role of Vasundhara Parameshwar.”

Soundarya says Kajol liked the script wholeheartedly and immediately wanted to be a part of the movie.

“She loved the story so much that she decided to come back to the Tamil film industry after nearly two decades.”

Soundarya says VIP 2 pays a lot of importance to women in the story and even the dialogues have been written to elevate women.

“We have seen female characters bowing down to male protagonists eventually in a lot of our movies. But Dhanush and I wanted to break that aspect of the characterisation particularly. The climax of VIP 2 will be something people don’t expect.”

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