On Vijay Sethupathi’s birthday, filmmaker Balaji Tharaneetharan shared the first look of the actor in his upcoming film Seethakathi.
A thick crop of grey hair, wrinkled skin, broad-rimmed glasses, Vijay Sethupathi is almost unrecognisable as the aged scholar. He looks like someone who would be friends with Kamal Haasan’s Senapathy in Indian (1996).
Hi friends, Here is #VijaySethupathi25 #Seethakaathi First Look Poster ?? #HBDVijaySethupathi #vsp25 #seethakaathi FL #vijaysethupathi pic.twitter.com/uExsKhkKtW
— Balajitharaneetharan (@balajitharaneet) January 15, 2018
Director Balaji Tharaneetharan shared how they got the look right. “It’s not simple to get such a look. He (Vijay Sethupathi) would be the first one on the sets and the last one to leave. It takes four hours to put on the make-up and two-hours to remove it,” he says.
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Academy Award winner Kevin Haney, who won the award in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy, was roped in. “Since it’s the role of an old person, we didn’t want it to look artificial. Kevin Haney is from Los Angeles and was involved in the initial sculpting work for the look. Alex Noble, another make-up artist, was flown to India for the final look,” he says.
Seethakathi was a Tamil scholar and saint in the 1650s. The film went on floors in April last year. While the film isn’t a biopic, Tharaneetharan said that the film explores the belief systems and values that Seethakathi tried to inculcate in people. The cast also includes Parvathy, Gayathrie, Ramya Nambeesan and J Mahendran.
Marking Sethupathi’s 25th film, Seethakathi is produced by Sudhan Sundaram, Umesh, Jayaram and Arun Vaidiyanathan for Passion Studios.