Baradwaj Rangan (Indian Express) has done a fine interview with Gautham Menon. Gautham speaks frankly about various things, including Kamal and VV. Excerpts:

Gautham, who then presented to his star a one-liner of the story that would eventually become Pachaikili. “He said it was nice and asked me to work on it. So I wrote the entire script in 40 days. But then he had second thoughts and said no. Then for a month I sat and thought about what Kamal could play. A cop? A convict on the run, like Sigappu Rojakkal 2? And I decided to make him a cop.

Then the suicide episode happened and, “Kamal said the entire thing had left a bad taste in his mouth, and he didn’t want this film at all. But the producer’s council told him he’d taken an advance – I’d also taken an advance – so we had to finish the film.” So Gautham narrated the story of Véttaiyaadu. “He said, ‘I don’t have time to get fit if I’m playing a cop.’ I said that wasn’t a problem. He asked if I could start shooting right away and finish the project. I said yes.”

And that’s how they started the film, “without Kamal sir getting a full narration of the script,” says Gautham. “He’d get the scene, read the dialogues, and start acting. All he knew was that he was a cop. He didn’t know where Jyotika would come in, where Kamalini would come in. He didn’t know who the two villains were – I didn’t introduce them to each other. The first time they acted together was the first time they met.”

Some people said Kamal Hassan didn’t look very interested in the project, “but it worked for me, because I wanted the character to be like that. We know every expression of Kamal’s. I’ve watched every film of his. I’m like a die-hard fan. I wanted a character that is very simple, very underplayed. And he was brilliant. There are some things you cannot write. You can write the dialogue, you can say the artist is going to look at Jyotika like this – but what he adds to that is mind-blowing. All of us were stunned.”

But this excellence came at a price. “In Véttaiyaadu, the first half is what I wanted to do. The second half is what I did for the producer and Kamal sir.”

“It’s very difficult to write in a Tamil cinema setup because you have to cater to the hero. That entire opening ten minutes is just an introduction of the hero. You can remove those ten minutes and start the film when Kamal touches down in Madurai. In fact, when Kamal first heard the script, he had reservations. I asked why. He said, ‘You’re making a film with a hero. Now this script will shift to the antagonist at some point. Then there’ll be a cat-and-mouse. There’ll be footage where I’m not there on screen. That’s not the kind of film you want to make.’ I understood. He’s a superstar. He has fans who need to be catered to.”

“When Kamal finally faces the last villain, I wanted a fight sequence. But he felt the audience would want to know about Jyotika, and a fight would only prolong this discovery. And so we had the villain die instantly.” But a lot of people came up and said that this villain was so evil, he needed to have been the recipient of some dishoom-dishoom from the hero. “If I hadn’t let Kamal tell me, I would have shot it. Even now, I feel there could have been a 100-feet fight between both of them.”

“…Without Kamal sir’s remuneration, Véttaiyaadu was shot at five-seventy five, which is awesome. It’s only because of Kaja’s – the earlier producer’s – overheads that it became a breakeven film, with a little bit of profit. Otherwise it’s a major money-spinner.”

For Véttaiyaadu, I wanted a title with a hunt kind of feel. I was talking to (the lyricist) Thamarai, and she said there’s this old song and started humming it. And that was it.

“The producer told me not to have these English portions. I said, ‘Sir, this character goes to New York. He can’t talk in Tamil.’ Then the producer asked me to at least have subtitles. I said you can’t read it because it goes by too fast.” But they insisted, and now, Gautham says, they’re saying the subtitles shouldn’t have been there because no one can read them.

“I had only three songs in my first draft. Harris comes to me and says we have a track record, so we need to have five songs. And the guy who comes to buy the audio rights says the same thing.” So the situations for Uyirilé and Neruppé were shoehorned in. “I was not even there when they shot the song, because I didn’t like the situation and I’d already started Pachaikili. But then these are factors that you have to play with.”

Gautham’s earlier interview with Sudhish Kamath (The Hindu) now seems very complementary. Read more on Baradwaj Rangan’s blog.