Sibi Sathyaraj will play a forest officer in his second movie with director Dharanidharan. The movie, reportedly titled Shiva, deals with man-animal conflict, and will feature quite a few VFX-rich portions. Apart from working on his physique, Sibi will travel to Bangkok to prep for the role. “I’ll be training with a real tiger there,” the actor told Silverscreen. Asked if the prospect sounded scary, he laughs: “The tigers will be trained.”
Signing up for the film took him down memory lane, he says. “Despite training with the dog for Naaigal Jaakirathai, I ended up getting bitten multiple times,” smiles the actor. “I hope that doesn’t happen here!”
Director Dharanidharan was reportedly inspired by the story of Avni – the man-eating tigress suspected to have killed 13 people that was shot dead in the Yavatmal forest in Maharashtra. He has also stated that the movie would delve into the problems faced by forest officers.
The actor will also be interacting with forest officers and observing them from close quarters. “It will help me learn their day-to-day activities and the protocols they follow.”
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Sibi is confident people will relate to man-animal conflict, an unconventional theme in cinema. “As long as the story is narrated in an interesting manner, the audience is ready to lap up anything. Television and digital content have opened up viewers’ minds.”
The movie will go on floors by the end of April. The makers plan to wrap it up between June and July.
Sibi has two more releases this year. Maayon, a mystery film directed by N Kishore, will see the actor sharing the screen with Tanya Ravichandran, Radha Ravi and KS Ravikumar. He’s also part of Ranga, an action thriller directed by Vinod DL.