Lal opens up: From director to actor, exploring different dimensions of filmmaking

Lal is getting ready for his first Malayalam web series, ‘Kerala Crime Files’ on Disney Hotstar Plus. All set for a June 23rd release, the series will be his second one after the Hindi web series, 'Soup'. We are all familiar with the actor, Producer, scriptwriter, director, singer, dancer, and distributor Lal, who updates himself with the times.

Director Lal
Malayalees would rather remember Lal as Director Lal. And the actor is rather happy to be known by that identity.

“People recognize me as actor Lal. Our characters make us popular. Only very few people talk about my old films. I feel happy to know that even the new generation is enjoying my earlier films. I have been an actor, director, distributor, singer, dancer, and Producer, simply because I was confident that I could do all that.

Very similar to Kalidasan
Malayalees will always remember ‘Thenkashipattanam’s Dasappan, ‘One Man Show’s’ Harinarayanan, and ‘Kalyana Raman’s’ Achuvettan. His films and characters are always happy revisits for Malayalees. If you ask him the character which is closer to his real self, he has an immediate answer to that.

"‘Salt and Pepper’s Kalidasan is to some extent a lot like me. I love food and I am also a bit shy. That way, Kalidasan is a bit like me. Similarly, you can find me in my characters in ‘Helen’ and ‘Dear Vappi’. So you can say that I have had to ‘act’ in only very few films.

To those who are unable to grasp my speech
A lot of people tell me that they find it difficult to grasp my dialogue and require subtitles. Though I do feel that at times, it is also true that I am someone who takes a lot of pride in my voice and dialogue delivery. I honestly don’t care if I sound arrogant here. When you are acting with honesty and dedication, you can at times sound incoherent. Even in real life, we need to repeat the same conversation or line over and over again. So we do ask ‘what’ during such a situation but then you can’t use that in Cinema. With sync sound, I think people are able to figure that out now. I really don’t know how to cherry-pick my words. I believe you need to understand the conversations from the situation than from conversations alone.