Location Diaries: Action and cut- Hostel 

The sets of his upcoming film, Hostel, took Ashok Selvan back to his college days. “The set was of a hostel and was very realistic; I was reminded of my college days at Loyola, where many of my friends were living in the hostel,” he says. “I always longed for their hostel experience. This film finally gave me a hint of what that must have been like.”

The shooting of Hostel also reminded him of his debut film, Soodhu Kavvum. He explains, “For this film, I have danced for the first time. Despite all the rehearsal, I was quite anxious and couldn’t sleep at all the night before the shoot. In fact, I arrived at the sets at dawn, two hours before the actual shoot! Thankfully, the shooting went smoother than I expected, and I ended up enjoying it.” It also reminded him of how for his first film, Soodhu Kavvum, he had come to the sets quite early. “The manager, who didn’t recognise me, wanted to know who I was and what I was doing on the sets!” he says, laughing.

While filming Hostel, Ashok Selvan apparently suffered a few injuries. “On the last day of my shoot, I was struck badly on my forehead during a stunt scene. After a break that lasted a few days, we began shooting for the songs. On the last day of the shoot, in a freak accident, my metal bracelet got caught on my ear stud and when I tugged at it, my earlobe tore and began bleeding profusely!”

This was, again, an incident that reminded him of his Soodhu Kavvum days. “I had a stunt sequence on the first day of that film’s shoot. A girl had to cut my hand, and during the take, she ended up actually slashing, which resulted in a deep cut and a lot of bleeding!” Ashok, who was badly shaken, apparently covered the wound under his shirt, and did not tell anyone. “I was worried that if I told anyone about the injury on the first day of the shoot, someone might consider it to be a bad omen. I thought they could remove me from the project, thinking of it as an inauspicious sign. I was silent that day and revealed only much later that this had happened.” Soodhu Kavvum, of course, went to become a hit. He laughs. “I heaved a sigh of relief about that. So, when I suffered injuries again during the shooting of this film, this time, I took it as an auspicious sign.”