Location Diaries: Yakkai Thiri-A tale of two marriages

Shooting for Yakkai Thiri turned out to be a unique experience for actor Bharath. "I have been married on screen dozens of times, but in Yakkai Thiri, for the first time, I get to marry twice in the same film. The weddings are with different heroines (Janani and Sonakshi Singh Rawat), but interestingly, both sequences were shot and completed on the same day. It made for a unique shooting experience for me," says Bharath.

The wedding scenes were planned meticulously by director Bharath Mohan, according to Bharath. "I reached the sets dressed in veshti-sattai. Soon as the first wedding sequence got over, the set and properties around me would get changed. Even the supporting actors and the crowd were different. I was the only constant in all the chaos around me," he says, laughing.


It may sound easy, but it wasn’t, says Bharath, referring, in particular, to the one-year timeline jump between both weddings in the film. “I had to change my mindset, emotion, body language and looks when doing the second one. Both Janani and Sonakshi were on set the whole day as director Mohan wanted to shoot some scenes with Janani and me, while I was marrying Sonakshi, and vice-versa. So, each time, I had to keep adjusting my emotions.”

The entire film was shot within a month, though there were many night shoots that apparently went on till dawn. During one such demanding night, Bharath had to ride in front of the camera team on a bike. "As I was on the move, the focus puller had to be extra careful. He had to keep adjusting the camera's focus to fix on the moving target. He was groggy due to lack of sleep, and his reflexes were slow. This led to blurred shots each time, which resulted in retakes. But after plenty of attempts, we got it right. We were all very understanding of the situation though.”