Vineeth Sreenivasan: Pranav Mohanlal’s carefree personality lend itself to his character in Hridayam

The filmmaker was impressed with the actor’s real-life facets and this prompted him to cast him as Arun Neelakandan in his upcoming movie

Pranav Mohanlal

For fans of Malayalam cinema, Mohanlal-Sreenivasan duo has always managed to present memorable movies. So, it’s almost a dream combination when their sons, Pranav Mohanlal and Vineeth Sreenivasan, team up for a film. In Vineeth’s directorial Hridayam, Pranav will be playing the protagonist named Arun Neelakandan.

In a recent interview with OTTplay, the filmmaker, who has also scripted Hridayam, opened up about casting the young actor, who has so far only done Aadhi and Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu as the protagonist.

“In Appu’s (Pranav) case, I wanted someone with his charisma; someone who has that twinkle in his eye,” said Vineeth. The director said that more than the characters he has essayed so far, it was his real-life personality that Vineeth could make out from the videos of him online that impressed him.

“I thought it would be great if he could lend that to the character I had in mind,” he says. “When I watched Aadhi, there were sequences where the actor is comfortable and those are what gives you an idea of what they are capable of. That’s where I thought he had that spark.” Contrary to popular belief, in a recent interview, Vineeth had also stated that he had only met Pranav a few times while growing up and that he was closer to Dulquer Salmaan.

Apart from Pranav, the movie, which is set to release on January 21 in theatres, also has Darshana Rajendran and Kalyani Priyadarshan as part of the cast, playing Darshana and Nithya, respectively. The film is divided into two chapters of Arun’s life – one during his campus days and the other after his college till he becomes settled in life.

Hridayam is a coming-of-age drama, which is inspired by incidents that had happened to Vineeth and his friends. The filmmaker told us that the initial thought of the movie came from a question, “Would a person be able to forget everything about his past and start afresh today? It’s impossible. So, I wanted to make a movie about a person who kept revisiting his past.”

The movie, which has Hesham Abdul Wahab as its composer, also has Vijayaraghavan, Aju Varghese, Arun Kurien and Annu Antony in pivotal roles. This marks Vineeth’s fifth directorial after Malarvadi Arts Club, Thattathin Marayathu, Thira and Jacobinte Swargarajyam. Chennai, Kochi, Palakkad and Hyderabad were the principal shooting locations of the film, which was partially shot before the pandemic.

Also read: Exclusive! Aju Varghese: I have decided that I will read the entire script before choosing a role now

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