Director Shyamaprasad
Hey Jude is director Shyamaprasad’s third film with Nivin Pauly after English: An Autumn in London and Ivide.
Shyamaprasad calls Pauly “a director’s actor who can be moulded in which way you want.”
“He was part of the process of the evolution right from the time I had the plot together. Nivin brought his own references of people he knew with this condition. He did his own research. His technique is effortless, in the way he sculpts his performance; only great actors can do that,” he added.
Scriptwriter Nirmal Sahadev
From working as chief associate with director Shyamaprasad on Ivide to assisting director Abi Verghese on Monsoon Mangoes, Sahadev graduated to become scenarist of Hey Jude. Climbing the next rung, he is now working on the post production of his maiden directorial Ranam.
The genesis of Hey Jude came up when Sahadev and Shyamaprasad met at Beatles Cafe in Kovalam.
“I had a story of this boy coming of age,” said Sahadev. At the suggestion of Shyamaprasad (who wanted a socially relevant issue to be included), the condition of Asperger’s Syndrome was brought into the story. Sahadev’s challenge lay in narrating a serious story that connects with the audience through humour.
For one particular scene, Sahadev worked more than 16 drafts — the moment where Dr Sebastian talks about Jude’s condition with his parents. Sahadev, who lives in Atlanta, added that under Shyamaprasad’s mentorship he learnt to develop characters.
Dialogue writer George Kanatt
New York-based George Kanatt, an apparel professional, has written the dialogues for not only Hey Jude but also for Sahadev’s debut film Ranam. Sahadev and Kanatt met during the making of Brown Nation, a multi-cultural comedy that released on Netflix in 2016.
Kanatt said that it took several rough drafts before they arrived at a script true to their sensibilities. Grateful to Shyamaprasad for giving them creative freedom, Kanatt is happy that the story appealed to the audience too.
