Miss Maggie is part of a large family: Rangaraj in Madhampatty

Actor Madhampatty Rangaraj says he had a good time on the sets of “Miss Maggie,” his upcoming movie in which Yogi Babu plays the protagonist. He mostly attributes the good experience to the cast’s strong camaraderie.

 

The majority of the scenes in the movie, which was entirely filmed in Chennai, took place within sizable houses on the ECR. The film ‘Vikram’ had also been filmed in this enormous eight-bedroom home. We felt like we were a part of a large family being inside the home with so many co-stars, including legendary actress Sharmila ma’am, Yogi Babu sir, Pandian, Jayachandran, ‘Cooku With Comali’ star Sunita, and many more. We all had such a great relationship with one another. On set, there was never a boring moment, according to Rangaraj.

Rangaraj really found it difficult to maintain his composure throughout his shoots. He said, “I couldn’t help but cry when I watched Yogi Babu sir, Jayachandran, Sunita, and Maaran perform; they would improvise and give each other spontaneous counters during takes.” We had to do many retakes for those portions alone as a consequence,” he chuckles.

Yogi Babu plays a grandmother in the movie “Miss Maggie,” dressing like a woman. “He is such a busy artist but he would wait patiently for his prosthetic make-up to be put on,” Babu says. It took an additional hour to take everything off after filming. Because of the prostheses, he was limited to liquid meals throughout the day and was unable to consume anything else. He was perspiring a lot from the prosthetics and clothing, yet he bore it all patiently. His commitment was really motivating.

However, there were also a few occasions when Yogi Babu would assemble the actors for a game of cricket on the house’s lawn when he wasn’t dressed as a woman. He’s a very good player. We really lost six balls as a result of his several sixers that came off the compound.

This was also one of many firsts for Rangaraj as a filmmaker. I had to dance to a montage music for the first time. I attended a few practices, which enabled me to better understand how to dance in time with my co-star. My movie partner Aathmika was really helpful during the musical scenes.

His experience doing stunts on film was another first. During an action scene, Rangaraj had to engage in hand-to-hand fighting with ten stuntmen. The movement needed to seem effortless while yet being very swift. Furthermore, such stunts had comedic components as well. Although unfamiliar to me, I learned a lot from all of this. I attended a one-day training session before to our two-day real shoot. All in all, these novel encounters were pleasurable and increased my self-assurance to act.

Rangaraj, who is also a well-known chef, gave the 350-person cast and crew a lavish feast on the last day of filming. He ends, saying, “One of my most treasured and warm experiences of my acting career was the ‘Miss Maggie’ shoot.”

Location-based diaries

This weekly piece describes the interesting interactions that often occur on movie sets.