Actor Arulnithi admits playing an alcoholic police officer in forthcoming Tamil thriller "Aarathu Sinam", a remake of Malayalam film "Memories", was not easy and he had work hard to do justice to the role.
"There were two challenges. Playing an alcoholic police officer required me to look drunk, yet express emotions through my face. I had to act sloshed but be wary of what I was going through and express it clearly," Arulnithi told.
The second challenge was to avoid being compared to the role originally played actor Prithviraj Sukumaran.
"When it comes to a remake, comparisons are bound to happen. Hence, I portrayed the character in a way I had visualized it, in my own style and avoided replicating Prithviraj's performance.
"I asked myself, 'If this was an original film, then how would I perform,'" he said, adding that he watched the original just twice to get a hang of the character.
He also admitted that it was tough getting into the skin of an alcoholic character.
"The first two days were really tough on the sets. Later on, my director helped me in understanding the character better and pushed me to perform subtly," said Arulnithi, who feels a remake will work, provided the soul of original is not disturbed.
"Tamil audiences have started to watch Malayalam films. Most people have watched 'Memories', and so, it was important for us to not tamper with the soul of the original. We didn't risk changing many things in a remake, still brought some nativity to suit Tamil audiences," he said.
The film, which is directed by Arivazhagan, also stars Aishwarya Rajesh, Aishwarya Dutta, Radha Ravi and Robo Shankar. It is slated to release in cinemas on February 26.
Arivazhagan and Arulnithi were supposed to team up for the former's last outing, "Vallinam".
"We were in talks for 'Vallinam', but things didn't fall in place. Since then we've been in touch and were tracking each other's work. This project was offered to me by producer Murali, and both of us felt Arivazhagan will do justice to it," he added.