Kovai Sarala: What I wish never happens, but ‘Sembi’ fulfilled a long-time dream

Kovai Sarala, along with director Prabhu Solomon, speaks of the challenges the team faced while shooting ‘Sembi’, how she misses her directors V Sekhar and Rama Narayanan, and what she desires to do in cinema henceforth

You wouldn’t expect Kovai Sarala, a veteran actor with over four decades of experience, to say that she can no longer find her niche in cinema. Life, people, and cinema have changed over the years, and Sarala grapples with the reality of it all. “Change is inevitable, in cinema and life. From make-up and acting to lighting and shooting, everything has changed.” The evolution of cinema has been to the extent that actors now have screen life that spans a few films, she says. “Heroines could be on top for a decade back then.” Now, this doesn’t mean she isn’t appreciative of how cinema has developed technically. “A lot of youngsters are here with brimming ideas, but sometimes they look at us as ‘oldies’ with obsolete ideas.”

Further, Sarala misses having “her directors” around. When she was at her peak, directors and actors collaborated more frequently, sharing a great understanding of each other. Sarala gets emotional at the mention of yesteryear filmmakers V Sekhar and the late Rama Narayanan — she has done about a dozen films with each of them. “They were like a parent to me. With their absence here, I feel like a child lost in the woods,” she says. Adding to this is the reduced scope for comedy in films. With narrations getting tighter, cinema has practically done away with comedy tracks that used to run parallel to the story. “We had writers who could write such tracks. Sometimes they would design scenes for an artist specifically, and at times, these comedy tracks were the reasons for the success of some films. Now, writers don’t want that and so comedians end up as heroes’ friends or brothers, and so on.”

One can sense Sarala’s tribulation when she says that she has never gotten what she wished for. “ Oru gundoosi kuda kedaikadhu (I don’t even get something as small as a pin)” However, in Sembi, her film with Prabhu Solomon that is set to hit screens this week, Sarala could finally fulfil a long-time wish of hers: doing a full-fledged serious role. She plays Veerathaayi, an elderly tribal woman who undergoes great ordeals to protect her granddaughter. “All these years, whenever I cried on screen, it was meant to make the audience laugh. Now, I wanted to make you all cry and I took it as a challenge,” she says. It was a major item on her bucket list. “Even great comedians like Nagesh sir got a Server Sundaram or Neerkumizhi to do that, but I got it only now.”

But the task ahead of her was mountainous. “The character was exciting, yes, but I was hesitant,” she says, adding that no matter how many films she has done, there will be a certain nervousness until the first shot. “With every film, it all feels new because you are working with a fresh group of people. But eventually, you will get comfortable.” With Prabhu, Sarala chose to be blunt. “I told him that he should guide me through and that I won’t do anything with my own assumptions. So he had to teach me how my character Veerathaayi behaves, how she speaks, her body language, etc.”

That’s precisely what Prabhu also wanted to do once he cast her in the film. Firstly, the very choice of casting her in this role is intriguing. “People look at her as Kovai Sarala. I look at her as an actor. Only a good comedy actor can pull off all the navarasa expressions. And of all the ‘80s actors, only Sarala ma still has that level of enthusiasm and energy,” he says. And this meant that Prabhu had to erase everything that we associate with Sarala and bring to life a Veerathaayi. “Having done 750+ films, she has a certain body language in front of the screen, and even that had to change. But she was so obedient and that’s what I admired the most about her. She was humble and she submitted to the process of bringing Veerathaayi to life,” he says.

While Sarala was informed of the nuances of her role, Prabhu had missed out on a pivotal detail. “He didn’t tell me about the dangerous locations we were to shoot (chuckles).” Prabhu, who is well-known for films like Mynaa and Kumki, is known for his picturesque locations, often in hill stations with enough forest cover. Since Mynaa (2010), this is a common feature in his films, but Prabhu dislikes such branding. “The stories demand these settings. And nobody asks why other filmmakers make their films inside coffee shops and colleges. I think everybody loves nature and they need an outlet. Also, I am bored as an audience as well. At least let my films take people to a different world,” he says.

For Sembi, Prabhu shot in remote locations around Kodaikanal. This demanded a lot from Sarala, physically, but she says it felt more adventurous and a child-like enthusiasm than anything. “Given my health ailments, I still wonder how I sat on top of a hill, at 1700 ft, without even complaining,” she says. What seems to have been truly challenging was shooting inside the bus. Sembi has extensive sequences set inside a minibus. Other than the space constraints, the team had to be mindful of the lighting, given how the entire film was shot in natural light. “The light allowed three hours per day to shoot. But we also had to go through several hairpin bends. Moreover, you won’t know when the climate here changes. It’s difficult to maintain continuity in these situations, but we managed,” says Prabhu. Sarala was first astonished at how they were shooting with such minimal lighting, but to perform, she had to forget what was going on. “I just had to perform with a laser-like focus, and so it needed a very controlled acting,” she says.