Sharafudheen on cloud nine

Those who watched Jayasurya’s latest film Pretham cannot easily forget the brilliant performance of Sharaf U Dheen in the film. Sharaf, who is noted for his role as Girirajan Kozhi in Premam, has redefined the actor in him with the role of Priyalal in Pretham. Sharaf attributes the meaty role to lady luck.

“It was hardly 12 days before the pooja that I got the call to act in Pretham. One day, when I was acting in Dileep’s Welcome  to Central Jail, director Ranjith Sanker came to the sets. We met and talked for a few minutes. Within four days, I got a call from his associate director Jeevan, asking me to meet Ranjith as he was planning to cast me as Priyalal in the film. Ranjith told me that he thought of casting me for that role after that meeting on the sets of Welcome to Central Jail,” says Sharaf.

The actor points out that his friendship with the co-artistes and the support from the director helped him come up with a good showing. “I and Aju are good friends since 2010.” “Though I have seen Govind Padmasoorya (G.P.) during several events, it was during the shoot of this film that we spent time together. Soon, we all started behaving like we were classmates as in the screenplay.”

Though his scenes are getting good comments, Sharaf admits that the director has chopped many shots in which he performed poorly. “Even during the shoot, Ranjith used to point out if we did well or badly. But the only problem was that his comments were over the mic,” he quips. “While locking the final cut, he has added many shots which were removed during the first cut. Some of the well appreciated dialogues were also added during post production.”

Sharaf is now excited that he is sharing screen space with his favourite actor Mohanlal in the ongoing Jibu Jacob film. “It was the films of Lalettan and Mammookka which prompted me to love film industry and to become an actor. It is like a dream come true. When I got the call from the production team of the film, I neither asked about my role nor the script, because it is a Lalettan movie,” says the actor, who acts as a colleague of Mohanlal in the film.