Exclusive | Jeethu Joseph on his upcoming film 12th Man, working with Mohanlal and more

Malayalam film director Jeethu Joseph is considered the man with Midas touch when it comes to making thrillers. With Memories and Drishyam he firmly cemented his place not just in Malayalam cinema but in Indian cinema and now all eyes are on his upcoming film 12th Man starring Mohanlal releasing on 20 May on Disney+ Hotstar.

In this exclusive chat, director Jeethu Joseph talks about his latest film, working with Mohanlal and how OTT has been a big boon for the film industry.

Your upcoming film 12th Man starring Mohanlal is touted as a crime thriller.

This is more a mystery thriller like the Sherlock Holmes ones. My friend Krishna Kumar, who has written the script, and I worked on it for the last three years. After we completed Drishyam, we had the final draft for this film ready and producer Anthony Perumbavoor was also looking for a film to make during the time of the pandemic. I then narrated the story to Lalletan (Mohanlal) and he liked it. 80% of the movie was shot in a resort so the pandemic didn’t affect us much. Some aspects of the film - transition scenes - will be totally fresh for the Malayalam audience.

Tell us a bit about working with Mohanlal.

He is every Indian director’s dream actor. He is a director’s actor and he’s extremely professional that it’s very easy to handle him. We write a character and we get more than what we have written when he plays it - he can pull off any role. Working with him is very comfortable. If you want him on sets at 5:30 am, he’s there, no questions asked.

Like your other hits, will 12th Man be remade in other languages as well?

Definitely, if people love the film then it will be remade in other languages. The story rights are with producer Sunir Kheterpal - in fact, he gave me the basic idea and we developed the story. He really wants to make it in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.

In your career, you seem to have worked more on crime or mystery thrillers. Is this a genre that is extremely appealing to you?

From my childhood, I used to read a lot of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes type of books and stories. I have a fascination for this genre and even my first film (Detective, 2007) was a suspense thriller. I wanted to do other kinds of films and I did make Mummy and Me, a family drama, and My Boss, a rom-com. Once Memories and Drishyam were released back-to-back, people tagged me as a thriller director. Now people expect this genre from me every time I direct a film but I really want to work on other types of films and I will do it even if it’s a flop. (Smiles) I’m getting slightly bored with the thriller genre - after a point, everything is the same in these films. Now, I have plans for a children’s film and a musical one but that’ll happen after two years as I have other projects to complete.

Are there other actors you want to work with, in other film industries?

I want to work with all the talented actors in our country. I really want to work with Amitabh Bachchan sir - I've been a big fan of his since childhood. I’ve heard he’s a very good human being and highly professional. I never thought I’d work with Kamal sir - not even in my dreams - and I did. Working with Rishi Kapoor sir was also a beautiful experience. He was like a father to me; we had such a good rapport. I wanted to get Rishi Kapoor sir and Lalletan in a film together and we had discussed that as well. Unfortunately, he left us.

Have you never thought about doing a web series like Poirot?

I would like to try something like that but right now, I don’t have the time to commit to it since I am working on numerous films.

The pandemic affected many films and filmmakers. How much did it affect you?

We were slightly worried when we started Drishyam 2 because we had a lot of outdoor shoots and junior artistes. But with proper planning, we managed to shoot it without anyone getting Covid. In fact, we were the first Malayalam crew to start shooting during the Covid pandemic. 12th Man was a walk in the park because the entire resort was booked and everyone stayed there.

One of the things that has happened during the pandemic is that people across India and the globe have discovered Malayalam cinema thanks to OTT. Films like The Great Indian Kitchen have done so well. What is your take on this?

Malayalam cinema has a worldwide audience now. For instance, for Drishyam 2 I saw a comment on social media from a person in South Africa who had seen the film. Even in India, Bollywood and other industries are looking keenly at Malayalam cinema for content. Whenever I start a film, I get calls from the Hindi film industry asking about what kind of film it is and so on. Thanks to OTT more people have discovered our cinema and it has helped us also. I told the director of Home, Rojin Thomas, that if the movie had released in theatres things would have been different. People might have criticised it saying the movie is good but there is a lot of lag, etc. But it was released on OTT and received a lot of appreciation; people loved it. The future of all film industries, especially Malayalam film industry, is going to be good thanks to OTT. This is just the beginning.

Latha Srinivasan is a senior journalist based in Chennai. Her passion is entertainment, travel, and dogs.

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