South Indian actor Duqluer Salmaan, who plays four different roles in his latest film Solo, called this ambitious bi-lingual project as one of his most challenging roles of his career. In the film, Salmaan dominates every frame as he takes on distinct and unconnected roles, as it plays out as an anthology. The themes revolved around love and rage.
“I loved the fact that we were going to make an anthology of four stories. It takes a lot of courage to plan something like this. We brainstormed a lot and shot continuously,” said Salmaan at a press conference on Thursday ahead of his movie premiere in Dubai.
The makers urged the audiences to give their experimental film a fair chance and to process it slowly.
For Salmaan, the chapter with the character Shekhar, in which he plays a young man with dreadlocks and a stammer, was particularly stressful.
“Shekhar is trying to win back Radhika and he’s shouting and screaming as two security guards hold me back. My neck hurt from all the pulling and it went on for three hours... But I had to push myself.
After the scene, I found the nearest bed and collapsed,” said Salmaan, the son of Malayalam superstar Mammootty.
For the star-studded premiere at the Galleria Cinemas on Thursday night, he was accompanied by director Bejoy Nambiar (of Shaitaan fame) and his leading ladies Arthi Venkatesh, Neha Sharma and Shruthi Hariharan.
Solo marks the Malayalam and Tamil debut of Nambiar, who is known in Bollywood for his dark thrillers.
“These are stories of love and rage... I have never done a Malayalam film before and I thought I should being with a new idea. It’s interesting times for Malayalam films... different stories are being told,” said Nambiar.
Their attempt was to make a film that was not all style, but also with substance, he added.
Read the full interview with Salmaan in Gulf News tabloid! soon. Solo is now showing in the UAE.
