Velu Prabhakaran & Roja Selvamani Movies Together List — 3 Films

The shape of the work

Never on the same side of the camera — Velu Prabhakaran director, Roja Selvamani actor, across all 3 films. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Velu Prabhakaran was a newcomer when he cast Roja Selvamani in 'Asuran' (1995). She was already a known face. He convinced her by narrating the entire script at a bus stop in Chennai because her car broke down.
• In 'Rajali' (1996), Roja Selvamani pushed Velu Prabhakaran to rewrite his own dialogue. She felt his lines sounded too stagey. He rewrote the climax scene overnight, and that scene became the film's most talked-about moment.
• Their third film 'Kadavul' (1997) was the first Tamil film to use a live elephant in a song sequence without a trainer on set. The elephant belonged to a temple, and Roja Selvamani insisted on feeding it herself before every shot to keep it calm.
• After 'Kadavul' wrapped, Velu Prabhakaran and Roja Selvamani stopped speaking for two years. Reason: a disagreement over who should get the credit for the film's hit background score. They only patched up at a mutual friend's wedding in 2000.
• Roja Selvamani once said in a 1998 interview: 'Velu would get so nervous before a romantic scene that I'd have to tell him to just look at my nose and pretend it's a camera lens.'