'He Never Took The Easy Route': Vishwanath And Sons Director Venky Atluri On Working With Suriya

When director Venky Atluri first came up with the idea of an older man falling in love with a much younger woman, he knew he was stepping into tricky territory. It wasn't just because the subject was unconventional for mainstream cinema but also because he wasn't sure if a star would sign on to the project. In this exclusive chat with NDTV, the Lucky Baskhar director opens up about Viswanath and Sons (shot in Tamil and Telugu), working with Suriya and more.

The Telugu film director admits that he wasn't sure if a star like Suriya would even agree to listen to the script and then accept it. "I had this fear of rejection," Atluri admits with a laugh. He first narrated the story to 2D Entertainment head Rajsekar Pandian, who's a close friend of Suriya's, and he loved the script, bumping up his confidence. Within days, he found himself sitting across from Suriya, narrating what would eventually become Vishwanath and Sons. By then, Atluri had developed the idea into a complete screenplay that he could narrate over two hours. "Suriya sir immediately loved the idea. He gave a few inputs - very small ones - and three months later we were shooting," he recalls.

The film revolves around a relationship between a man in his early forties and a woman in her early twenties, a premise that naturally raises moral and emotional questions. While the premise immediately reminds you of the Hindi film Cheeni Kum, Atluri says that the climax of Vishwanath and Sons is something quite different and would find resonance with the audience. "We knew people would come with those references. Neither Suriya sir nor I wanted audiences walking away feeling uncomfortable or manipulated. He was very conscious that this shouldn't become a commercial treatment of an age-gap romance that pleased only one section of the audience. He wanted the climax to be emotionally and logically right," he says. That conversation became one of the defining creative exercises of the film as he wrote numerous drafts (more than 10 for some) for scenes before arriving at the final copy.

For the Tholi Prema director, the challenge wasn't merely to justify the relationship but to ensure the emotional journey felt authentic enough that audiences wouldn't spend the entire film judging it. "When emotion is involved, people sometimes forget logic. But we wanted to strike a balance between both. This script involved the most emotionally demanding writing process in my career, I think," he admits. While his previous blockbuster Lucky Baskhar involved extensive research into finance, numbers and technical details, Vishwanath and Sons demanded something entirely different. "Dulquer's film required technical homework while Suriya's film required emotional homework."

Atluri says he spent countless hours searching for the right emotional beats, conversations and even individual lines that would resonate beyond the film. "I was trying to arrive at lines that people could connect with - almost like life lessons," he says. Interestingly, he doesn't believe scripts become stronger in isolation but in narrating them repeatedly to numerous people to polish it to the best. "I love narration and this is a habit I developed during my early years working under producer Dil Raju as a dialogue writer. He once told me that every time you narrate a story, you'll discover a new flaw or get a better idea; so, narrate it to as many people as possible. That advice stayed with me. In fact, I narrated this film to Suriya sir three times - not because he wanted it, but because I wanted to," he smiles. Those repeated narrations, discussions and rewrites eventually shaped what he believes is one of Vishwanath and Sons' biggest strengths - its climax.

Did Suriya actually give the climax for the film as is being talked about? "We discussed every scene and the climax is the result of continuous collaboration rather than a single suggestion. I watched almost every film in this genre while writing because I wanted to understand how these stories usually end. The climax we finally arrived at is, in my opinion, the best version for this story. It is a happy ending where nobody walks away angry or sad," he explains.

Atluri acknowledges that Suriya's involvement went far beyond simply playing the lead. "He could have easily said we've entertained audiences for two-and-a-half hours and that's enough. Instead, he kept asking me to push it further," he adds, saying that the team took their time during post-production because they wanted audiences to remain emotionally invested throughout the film. "It's not about the runtime anymore. It's about keeping people mentally engaged. Thanks to OTT platforms, audiences have become very quick at predicting what's coming next," he notes.

Coming off the commercial success of Lucky Baskhar, did box office numbers matter to him? Atluri insists he has never measured success in terms of collections and points out that even classics like Ben-Hur and Titanic have critics. He says, "I don't put a number to it. If 100 people watch my film and 75 genuinely like it, I'm satisfied. You cannot satisfy everybody. The audience acceptance matters more than box office milestones. The producer, distributor and everyone else will have their own expectations. Mine is simply that people should like the film."

Having now worked with actors like Dhanush, Dulquer Salmaan and Suriya, what difference did he find among these stars? Atluri answers, "They're all disciplined. They value time because every minute on a film set costs money and they're all producers so they know the value of time and money. But Suriya sir is like an elder brother to me. He constantly shares stories from his own career and from the senior actors he has worked with. There has been a lot of learning from him." As for Mamitha Baiju's casting, Atluri says he was impressed with her natural performance in Premalu. "There was so much ease in her performance. I felt she and Suriya would work beautifully together on screen," he says.

Throughout his career, the Vaathi director has moved from genre to genre and believes in constantly reinventing himself rather than repeating successful formulas. After the socially driven Vaathi and the financial thriller Lucky Baskhar, he has now moved to an intimate relationship drama. saying it's a conscious decision because he wants the audience to judge each film on its own merit. 

Ask Atluri whether the sensibilities of Telugu and Tamil audiences are different and if making movies for each of them was different, and he replies, "The way you convey emotion matters more than the language. The culture may be different but I think emotions and sensibilities are the same. The success of films like Lucky Baskhar and Kantara across languages is proof that genuine emotions travel effortlessly."

As the 37-year-old director gears up for the release of the film on August 14, he says that Vishwanath and Sons is a family film rooted in ordinary conversations and recognisable relationships and not just about an age difference between a man and a woman. The movie also stars Radhika Sarathkumar and Raveena Tandon and has music by GV Prakash Kumar.