Now you see me 

Sathish's next, a dark comedy titled Vithaikkaran, is gearing up for release this Friday. The film marks the maiden directorial venture of Venki, an erstwhile associate director of Lokesh Kanagaraj, who previously worked on Master and Vikram. He shares that his debut is a heist film. “Sathish, a commoner, is at the helm of the heist and how he pulls it off with his talent in magic is what the story is about."

It's a story that prioritises brain over brawn, according to the director. "Usually, you see heroes fight off villains and take the treasure, but here, Sathish uses his intelligence. We made his character a magician because we wanted to make his back story interesting and convince the audience that he has the capacity to pull off such a heist."

To play this role convincingly, Sathish learnt the art of spellcraft. "We had a professional magician onboard to train him. None of the shots were edited or embellished with CG. He performed all his portions after learning the tricks."

The long familiarity with Sathish meant that Venki was never in any doubt once he decided to make his first film. "I was working on my debut four years ago, even before Sathish made his debut with Naai Sekar. Back then, I had a survivor-thriller story, which required a sizeable budget. As Sathish is an up-and-coming actor, I decided to write a different story for him, and that's how this one came about."

While the extended cast of Vithaikkaran includes Anandraj, Madhusudhan Rao, Subramaniam Siva, John Vijay, Pavel Navageethan, and Japan Kumar, it’s also notable for marking the Tamil debut of heroine Simran Gupta, who starred in the Telugu film, Anveshi (2023). "She plays a journalist, and a friend and confidant of Sathish, not his romantic interest," Venki clarifies. Though Simran had a tough time with the Tamil language, Venki is proud of the sincerity Simran brought to her performance. "She would come to my office religiously before the shoot schedules began to try and learn the dialogues by heart. All her scenes were finished in a single take.”

The heist portions in the film happen in an airport. "The usual locations for such films are banks and jewellery shops. I thought long and hard about settling on an airport as the setting, as I knew we would have close to an hour of the film happening in it,” he says, and shares that the scenes were all shot in the Coimbatore airport. “For a heist to be thrilling, it needs to negotiate challenges like surveillance and security. So, the airport really felt like a great setting for this film.”