After A Quiet Place, Prabhudheva Adopts Silence

It’s  just  a coincidence. But a week after Emily Blunt’s very quiet very scary shiver giver A Quiet  Place, Prabhudheva is all set to do his own wordless horror-thriller in  Mercury.

Says Prabhu, “There is much to be said about the virtues of silence. We speak too much in our films. We are afraid if we don’t talk non-stop the audience will lose interest in the goings-on. But that’s not case. There were long passages of silence in the opening scenes of  Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa. In Gulzar Saab’s Namkeen, Shabana Azmi didn’t speak at all. In Koshish both Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bachhan were dead and mute. They could  convey  so much through their silences.”

Prabhu says  it was tough conveying his character’s inner thoughts without words.  “We are so used to acting out loud. Here I had no verbal assistance at  all. There is not a word of spoken dialogue in Mercury.  It was entirely  up to me to communicate my character’s thoughts  without tripping over into incoherence.”

 Prabhu feels Mercury is  a new language of cinema. “Cinema  is predominantly a visual medium. Why turn  it into a radio? I am happy to say  in Mercury I’ve managed to ‘say’  what I have  to without speaking.”

Mercury  is  also special because it is Prabhudheva’s  first  negative role. “Did I have to try hard to be  evil? Not really.  There is a dark side in all of us waiting to be tapped. Shah Rukh Khan tapped it in Darr and Srideviji in Laadla. I enjoyed being  evil. It was very liberating.”

Though not intimidated , Prabhu is nervous about his Mercury being pitched against Shoojit Sircar’s October this  Friday.

“That’s a big film with a big star(Varun Dhawan)  directed  by one  of the  top directors(Shoojit Sircar).We aren’t even competing with  October  , firstly because we are not equals and secondly because October is  a love story. Mercury is  a hate story. I believe there is room for  both in  our lives.  If we don’t  harbour hatred  in  our hearts , how would we  appreciate  love?” says  Prabhu,