Exclusive! Roshan Mathew on Chera: Lijin Jose has the courage to become an independent voice

Count on Malayalam actor Roshan Mathew for always choosing the most different characters and films. His upcoming movie Chera, which is helmed by Friday and Law Point director Lijin Jose, has the actor essaying the role of a paraplegic.

In an exclusive interview with OTTplay, Roshan opened up about what attracted him to the film, which also has Nimisha Sajayan in the lead.

“It's a story that hooked me right when I heard the story. At that point, I was also waiting to work with Nimisha. That was a huge factor,” he said. The duo had shot Sreejith N’s Oru Thekkan Thallu Case after completing work on Chera.

The film’s director was also a major reason Roshan decided to sign the movie, he says. “I had also watched Lijin chettan’s Friday and the documentary, 8 ½ intercuts. It was evident that he was someone who thinks differently. He is a filmmaker who has his own character. For someone who has only done one commercial feature film, I believe he is someone who really has the courage to become his own independent voice. He is not someone who would go by the trends, and he is ready to face the consequences,” explains Roshan.

The actor says that though playing a paraplegic had its challenges, he doesn’t want to go into detail about that. “I think the strain aspect of the shooting should be kept a secret. That’s not something that actors must be using to sell a film; I feel the audience should never find that out. It’s a disadvantage. If an actor says multiple times that he has put in a lot of effort to do a particular scene, then that’s what will be going through the audience’s minds when they watch the film. If the scene has to work convincingly, the audience shouldn’t feel that,” Roshan says, adding that the team is currently working on the CGI scenes of the film to ensure that the output is as believable as possible.