Director R.S. Prasanna, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming film ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’, has revealed that he and the makers auditioned for over 2500 people for the film. The director recently spoke with IANS, and shared the long arduous process of casting which spanned nearly 10 months.
The auditions were conducted online and were quite challenging given they didn’t want professional actors, and wanted a certain degree of rawness. Speaking with IANS, Prasanna said, “The casting was almost an eight month, ten month casting effort, Tess Joseph (casting director) was there during that time, then Anmol also.
If I remember right, we auditioned about 2,500 people, we had to go through their online auditions and we brought it down to about 50 people”. The director further mentioned that they also had a series of workshops because to audition people who have not acted professionally before, they need some assistance in terms of preparation.
He shared, “We have to enable and create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable. Only then will you be in your elements. I was not checking whether they were already a professional, I wanted their realness and rawness to come.
So it's my job to create that environment, and luckily Aamir Khan sir was the most supportive producer”. Talking about what all went into the preparation of actors with special needs, he said, “We had basic workshops on acting, clowning, dance and so many, and through that we would, I would be walking around and observing because we were not only looking at acting, we were also looking at personality match with the, we have ten characters”.
“We have another almost 70 characters who are people with special needs who are there in the movie, who are the opponent teams”, he added. Produced by Aamir Khan under his banner, Aamir Khan Productions, ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’ is set to release in cinemas on June 20, 2025.