She appreciates debut director Lokkesh’s attention to detail and confidence in his work. “Lokkesh has written the dialogues too. Being a murder mystery, the lines he wrote were such that any word could contain a significant clue. So he insisted that we stick to the exact dialogue, without improvising on sets.” Though it was a challenge shooting this way, Abhirami says she actually enjoyed it,
“Because I don’t speak Telugu often, I couldn’t improvise and so I memorised the lines and stuck to the dialogues given. But since I speak and think in Tamil, I had to make an extra effort to stick to the script and be careful to not change even a single word, comma or pause. I really enjoyed this curve ball Lokkesh threw at me. Kudos to him for being so confident about his screenplay which provided such an interesting challenge to me as an actor.”
Working with Naveen Chandra, Abhirami observed his keen attention to detail on sets. “He’s a brilliant actor. He is also a very astute observer. For one scene, we shot inside a beautiful bungalow, with a certain colour scheme that was in tune with the story. However, I noticed a power outlet with a jarring colour palette that did not match the rest of the room’s aesthetic. Naveen noticed it too and immediately suggested to the art department that a cupboard be moved forward to cover the outlet.
Even the way he spoke about camera angles, emotions, pauses between dialogues, and the way he approached a scene, he has the approach of a keen storyteller. I told him he will make a good director someday!” She also connected with Naveen on a personal level, “Both of us have children of the same age. So we had a lot of stories to share about parenting, being on sets and away from family.”
