Exclusive! Mithun Manickam: The lockdown really helped me to portray my character comfortably

While working for the promotion and marketing team in Suriya's production house, 2D Entertainment Pvt Ltd, little did Mithun Manickam know that he would act in the lead role of a project bankrolled by the banner. All excited about Arisil Moorthy's Raame Aandalum Raavane Aandalum, which is set for a premiere on Amazon Prime Video on September 24, the filmmaker-turned-actor says he had never planned acting at all. Having undergone a few changes in his appearance to play the protagonist in the film, Mithun says he blindly followed the instructions of the director to get into the character's shoes.  

"My journey in filmdom started as an assistant director ten years ago. I became a director with Aivarattam in 2015 which didn't fare well due to some reasons," he begins, adding, "Rajsekar, the director of 2D Entertainment Pvt Ltd, and I hail from same place. I got an opportunity to work with the production house through him. It was he who suggested that I take up the lead role in the movie. I was really scared as acting was never in my mind. I was always interested in scripting and direction. But thanks to the encouragement from Suriya sir and Rajsekar sir, I took the acting plunge." 

Mithun recalls that their advice was to completely surrender to director Moorthy and he says he followed it from day one. As the film's story revolves around a young farmer whose bulls go missing, Mithun was asked to go to his village near Sivagangai and observe the people there for sometime. He says, "Though I had initial apprehensions about taking up a lead role, I slowly realized that I could relate to the character I was playing. I could easily grasp the dialect used in the film as I was born and brought up in a village. More over, the acting sessions and rehearsals which we had before the project went on floors helped me a lot to better my body language." 

The young actor says that he had to train a lot to get used to handling two bulls, around which the story is woven. "The lockdown really helped me to portray my character comfortably. I went to my home town and with the help of my brother, I got trained in taming bulls in a span of six months. My life revolved around bulls during the period of time I stayed there. I used to eat food with them, feed them and sleep with them for most of the time," he says.