Kamal Haasan, who arrived in Kochi for the promotions of ‘Indian 2’ that hit theatres on July 12, appreciated Malayali costume designer S B Satheeshan for his work in the movie. This was the award-winning costume designer’s first work in Tamil cinema, though he has worked in over 400 Malayalam films in his career.
Satheeshan who has worked in films like ‘Guru’, ‘Devadoothan’, ‘Summer in Bethlehem’, ‘Traffic’, among others, says it was always his dream to work in a film directed by Shankar. “Both Shankar sir’s ‘Jeans’ and Venu sir’s ‘Daya’ hit theatres on the same day in 1998. ‘Daya’ was my third work in Malayalam cinema. Soon after I watched ‘Daya’, I went to the next theatre to watch ‘Jeans’. I remember being awe-struck by the costumes in ‘Jeans’ and hoping to get a chance to at least design one costume in a Shankar-directorial. I am glad I have been able to be part of ‘Indian 2’ and ‘Indian 3’,” he said.
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His work in ‘Indian 2’ has been limited to one costume in an action scene and a song sequence involving 100s of artists. Most of his work is in ‘Indian 3’, which is expected to hit theatres in six months. “However, my work in Indian 2 was not small. I needed four months just to design one costume, which nearly cost Rs 20 lakh. That type of dress was not available anywhere in India. I finally found it in Abu Dhabi. However, it was not suited for an action scene and hence we had to work on it extensively,” he said.
He added that Shankar was particular about the costume because it was based on a real-life person who dresses exactly like that in India. He added that, as an artist it gives him a lot of satisfaction working with a director like Shankar. “If you notice his films, you will understand the place the director gives for art and costumes. He also gets very excited on seeing the costumes as he is personally very involved with it. I personally wore the golden costume I designed for the movie to see his response. He was very happy. Such reactions from directors give you complete satisfaction as an artist,” he said.
He added there are no adjustments in Shankar’s movies. “He ensures all the costumes are designed several months ahead of the schedule. There is no-last minute rush. That was such a learning curve. There are very few Malayalam directors like Santhosh Sivan who has the same working style,” he said.
So, how did he become part of ‘Indian 2’? “Art director T Muthuraj had suggested my name to Shankar sir. Apparently, the director had approached several other costume designers but he was not satisfied, which is why the project came to me,” he said.
