One of the much-hyped parts of Leo is the action sequence involving Vijay and a hyena named Subramani. The scene was lauded for its quality of visual effects, which was unprecedented in Tamil cinema. IGN India recently spoke to Jateen Thakkar, VFX Supervisor, and Mangesh Awate, CG Supervisor of MPC about working on the film, and the two heaped praise on Vijay, who was very co-operative while working on the action sequence.
“Vijay sir, I would just say he’s a gem of a person. To work with him in the whole film… almost all the stunts were done by him. Especially when you’re working with a superstar of his caliber, there’s always a bit of pressure… whether we can ask him to act again and do things because this was an action-packed sequence. Most of the time, the action was intense, plus interacting with the hyena, which was played by a stunt guy in a blue costume. There’s always a chance of doing multiple retakes. However, we did some of them, and Vijay sir was more than happy. He obliged us. It was very kind of him to do those action sequences and retakes. I remember his sentence: ‘If you are happy, then I am happy.’ That put extra pressure on us to get it right,” said Jateen.
Vijay was more than eager to work with the VFX team and he was ready to put all the hard work in the freezing weather of Kashmir, where the sequence was shot.
“As a person, he’s a gem, very simple, and very disciplined. We were shooting in Kashmir, and the temperature was around -9 to -11 degrees. We were all in four layers because of the cold, but he was always in a full-sleeve shirt and pants. I asked him why he didn’t feel cold. He politely and nicely said, ‘I have to do my work.’ That’s the mark of a person who is very honest in his work,” Jateen opined.
“We had multiple shooting schedules. The first schedule was around 18 days, and the next was for 5 days. Whenever I met him on set for the second time, he always asked me how his hyena was doing, how it was shaping, how it was coming up. There was one small incident. Since he was acting, and there was a stunt guy acting as the hyena, he said, ‘I will do my part. Who will do the hyena part? It’s up to you to get the hyena work to match my acting,'” he added.
Leo, despite opening to mixed reviews, turned out to be a blockbuster. The film, based on the Hollywood movie A History of Violence, follows an unassuming cafe owner and his alleged past as a gangster. Directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, the film is part of LCU, which also has Vikram and Kaithi.
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