Boney Kapoor reveals Valimai star Ajith Kumar doesn't use body double | Exclusive

Boney Kapoor, who is the producer of South blockbuster Valimai, showered praises on actor Ajith Kumar. In an exclusive interaction with IndiaToday.in, Boney Kapoor revealed that the South superstar doesn't use a body double for his stunts.

Ajith Kumar's Valimai, which released on February 24, is breaking all records at the box office. The audience and critics have been raving about the actor's performance, action sequences, story, and screenplay. In an exclusive chat with IndiaToday.in, producer of the film, Boney Kapoor opens up about the difficulties they faced while shooting the much-hyped film, his equation with Ajith, and box office numbers.

Excerpts from the interview:

Valimai starring Ajith Kumar was one of the most anticipated films of the year. The action-thriller, helmed by H Vinoth, was first planned to release during Pongal (January 14), but was delayed due to the pandemic restrictions. After all the delays, the film has finally released in theaters and received a thunderous response. Speaking to IndiaToday.in, producer Boney shared, "We were all super confident that Valimai will bring the audience back to the theaters. However, it was not an easy film to make, we had many challenges. We had three phases of Covid to tackle with. First the Delta phase, then the re-occurrence of Delta, and then the Omicron. We have braved these and all thanks to my hero Ajith, he motivated us.”

He further added, “We shot between the first and the second wave whatever we could shoot. There were two actors who had to be replaced because they were scared of the pandemic, but since our main hero was not afraid of shooting in that phase, everybody backed him. The director also was very supportive and so it went on well, otherwise, we would have been left stranded waiting for this to normalise."

The film also marks Ajith Kumar and Boney Kapoor's second collaboration after Nerkonda Paarvai. Talking about his relationship with the South star, Boney Kapoor states, "My relationship with Ajith has definitely grown and that is the reason we are doing the third film together. He is an absolute professional, focused, sincere, dedicated, and a fine human being."

Ever since the release of the film, the audience has been raving about the high-octane action sequences in Valimai. Some have even called it one of the best action scenes of recent times. Agreeing to it, Boney Kapoor shared, "The film is very high on action and something which I don't think any Indian film has seen. There is hardly any CGI used in the action, everything that you see is in real-time on camera. Also, Ajith doesn't use a body double. If you see the BTS videos you would see while he was doing the wheeler, he even fell off the bike. Even when he had to be dragged by two motorbikes, he said he will give the shot. You can see his face and body being dragged. That is what Ajith is."

Reportedly, Valimai had garnered Rs 76 crore in India on its first day of release. Heaving a sigh of relief and happy with the response, the producer said, "I'm absolutely elated. In fact this is a non-holiday week and non-holiday day and despite the film being lengthy and the number of shows being lesser than what normally is, the response has been exceptional. Normally, people have two extra shows from the routine number of shows, but we just had one extra show and in spite of this it has done phenomenally well. I feel it's the highest collection for a non-holiday film."