Chettah is busy

The connection is no good, his voice keeps breaking. That’s because Hareesh Peradi is on the road, travelling from one end of Chennai to another. He has been shuttling a lot between Chennai and Kochi in the last few months. It all began with his roles in Kidari and Aandavan Kattalai. After that, offers from Tamil have been coming, on and on. Through that bad connection, he manages to list out the new bunch of movies he has become part of, the newest now in theatres and getting a lot of appreciation — Vikram Vedha.

“It came after Aandavan Kattalai, which had Vijay Sethupathy in the lead. In fact, when he heard the script of Vikram Vedha, he suggested my name for the role of the don ‘Chettah’,” says Hareesh. What’s been so unique about the film, Hareesh says, has been the director duo — the couple Pushkar and Gayathri, both equally good at what they do.

“It was all well-planned, the script and the shooting, everything.” What he can’t forget about the shoot was the day they were filming at Tambaram, when in the afternoon, news came about the demise of then Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa. “Everyone was suddenly upset and on the way back, I saw the roads empty and shops closed. The next morning I had to take my flight back to Kochi at 5 am. But there were no vehicles. So then I found a guy riding a scooter and perched behind him with my two big bags. I just about reached the airport when the boarding time ended and begged them to let me in the flight. That experience somehow made me feel part of the tragedy. Jayalalithaa was not only the CM, she was also a great actor.”

And by now, Hareesh has so many Tamil movies that he had to cut down on a few of his Malayalam films, including one with Mammootty. 

“I have become quite comfortable in Tamil,” he says. After Vikram Vedha, there is Samuthirakani’s Aan Devathai and Mahesh Babu’s Spider in Tamil and Telugu respectively. Then there is a Vijay film directed by Atlee and a Vikram film too. Yet another is of young GV Prakash, Ayngaran, and then one directed by Manoj. It is not all villain characters, there are strong character roles too. “They got me to dub in all the films too even when I don’t play a Malayali.”

The new one in Malayalam is as a villain opposite Lal in the film Chandragiri. Two other recent films are My School and Theeram. He has also committed to a new director.