Anson Paul: Imagining himself to be Prithviraj

Just before his first-ever moment in front of the camera, for the film, KQ (2013), actor Anson Paul sat in his Skoda Octavia at Fort Kochi. A big fan of the Mollywood star, Prithviraj, Anson said, “I told myself, 'It is not Anson who will get out of the car. Instead, it will be Prithviraj. I have done so many films. All the people standing on the road adore me as an actor'.”  

It seemed to have worked. The first shot was of Anson and his friend, Baiju Johnson (who is also the film's director) riding on a Bullet and entering a house. Thereafter, they step out and Baiju sits on a wall even as Anson lights a cigarette. Both ogle two girls who walk past. Then Anson says something to Baiju, the pair get on the bike, and ride away. 

“The shot went smoothly,” says Anson. “Before this, the crew members were wary of me because I was the new kid on the block. But after this scene, they all relaxed, and accepted me.”  

In Anson's next film, Su.. Su... Sudhi Vathmeekam (2015), which starred Jayasurya, and Shivada Nair, Anson plays a character called Vijay Babu. There was a scene when Anson comes down a spiral staircase, at a school in Palakkad. Jayasurya, who was going up, was supposed to have a minor collision with Anson and the latter would lose his balance. The next scene would be of Anson lying dazed on the ground. But when the shoot took place, Anson fell over the railing and landed on the floor with a thud.  

Jayasurya ran downwards and said, “Are you okay?”  

Anson said he had planned it beforehand. Jayasurya said, “You should have given us an indication you wanted to do something like this?”  

Anson replied that it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Immediately, Jayasurya said, “It's good to do things for a purpose, but you must look after yourself physically at the same time.” Thankfully, cinematographer Vinod Illampally had not switched off the camera. “So, he got the entire fall, which can be seen in the film,” says Anson.  Meanwhile, an excited director Ranjith Shankar said, “You have now really become the character of Vijay. Come and sit next to me and watch the scene on the monitor.”  

For Anson, this was a huge honour. “A director calling an actor, who is not the hero, and with only one movie on his resume,” says Anson. “That was when I felt goosebumps.”   

Anson also had goosebumps on the sets of Remo (2016). “I felt that I could not do a romantic scene with Keerthy Suresh unless I felt it deep inside me,” he says. So he downloaded her photos from the Net and added some photos of himself. Thereafter, he made a video accompanied by the 'Kandaangi, Kandaangi' song from the Tamil film, Jilla. Anson watched the video many times. “As a result, during the romantic scene I was totally in love with Kavya (the character played by Keerthy),” says Anson.  

However, the next day, there was a climax scene where Anson was supposed to get very angry with Keerthy. On the set when Keerthy came to talk to him, just before the shoot, Anson ignored her completely. Keerthy looked startled. Actor Sivakarthikeyan said, “He must have got into his character.” After the shot was over, Anson quickly went and apologised to Keerthy.  

Keerthy said, “Oh, I did not know you were into Method acting.” And they both had a good laugh.