Reporting by Niveda Manohar; Photos by Sriram Narasimhan. Photos from the press meet are below the report.
The cast was stuck in maddening traffic. The press meet, predictably, began late. But when director Vishnuvardhan led the Yatchan team inside the Prasad Labs, enthusiasm and camaraderie lit up the stage. After all, Vishnuvardhan and Arya are long-time associates, Krishna is Vishnuvardhan’s brother, and Yuvan has been associated with every movie the director has made. The excited team had a lot to say about the film.
Yatchan’s story was inspired by an eponymous short story the writers SuBa wrote for the weekly magazine Anandha Vikatan. The team plans to release a book about how the short story was adapted into a screenplay for the film. Pa Vijay, fondly called ‘Paavi’ by the team, wrote the kind of lyrics he did after Vishnuvardhan kept badgering him for ‘Therikkara’ madiri lyrics. In another light moment, Arya said, “Unaku vera vazhi illa, enna vechu dhan padam edukanum.” He added that he doesn’t listen to Vishnuvardhan’s scripts because it takes the director six to seven hours to explain them. Meanwhile, Deepa Sannidhi struggled with her Tamil, but managed quite well eventually, as she spoke about how lucky she felt to be a part of a Vishnuvardhan film.
The film will have two colour tones throughout: red for scenes featuring Aya, and blue for scenes featuring Krishna. Both Vishnuvardhan and Krishna admitted that there had been tremendous pressure on Vishnuvardhan from their family to cast Krishna in one of his films. Vishnuvardhan also compared Thambi Ramaiah to the deceased Cochin Hanifa and said that he has played a crucial role in the film. The supporting cast includes Sendrayan, RJ Balaji, and Adil Hussain of Life of Pi and English Vinglish fame. Adil, Vishnuvardhan said, reminded him of Raghuvaran. Yatchan will also see the director collaborating with Stunt Silva for the first time.
The audio of the film was formally launched after the press meet.
