Sri Lanka - Modern Perspectives from an Ancient Melting Pot

Rehan Unveiled: A Creative Odyssey from Sri Lanka to LA

• Dee Gibson • Season 2 • Episode 4

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In this episode we delve into the fascinating journey of Rehan Mudannayake, a Sri Lankan Actor, Director, and Writer who made his screen debut in the film 'Funny Boy' directed by the acclaimed Deepa Mehta. Rehan recounts his unique path into acting, the influence of his diverse upbringing, and his commitment to changing the narrative around brown people in film. He discusses his creative processes, his life in Brixton, and his latest projects, including a comedy series called 'Cougar' and an upcoming film in LA. A charming guest who shares generously, tune in to hear how Rehan blends personal experiences with his professional work, bringing  a lightness to deep themes.

00:39 Meet Rehan: Actor, Author, and Director

01:24 Rehan's Creative Process and Life in Brixton

07:42 Rehan's Upbringing and Education

16:55 Breaking into Acting: The Funny Boy Story

21:33 The Challenges and Impact of Funny Boy

23:19 Bringing Personal Elements to the Role

24:22 The Three-Day Workshop Experience

25:01 Challenging Exercises and Emotional Depth

26:43 Physical and Emotional Impact of Acting

28:59 Handling Love Scenes 

31:46 Reception and Impact of the Film in Sri Lanka

33:47 Career Growth and New Opportunities

35:51 Creating the Comedy Series 'Cougar'

41:36 Exploring Familial Obligations in 'So Long Farewell'

46:17 Advice for Aspiring Filmmakers

About Rehan Mudannayake

Rehan Mudannayake is an award-winning filmmaker and actor, based in London. He stars as Shehan Soyza in Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta’s Netflix film Funny Boy, based on Shyam Selvadurai’s acclaimed novel.

As writer-director, his films have screened at multiple international film festivals. His most recent short – So Long, Farewell – had its World Premiere at the 2024 Academy Award-qualifying Pan-African Film Festival in LA, followed by its International Premiere at the London Indian Film Festival, and its US East Coast Premiere at the Oscar and BAFTA-qualifying Rhode Island Film Festival. 

Mudannayake is a graduate of University College London (UCL), where he was a Chevening scholar.

Links

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/rehanmudannayake

Website: https://www.rehanmudannayake.com/

FILM Cougar: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBtTqVLosqA/?hl=en

FILM So Long, Farewell Official trailer: https://www.rehanmudannayake.com/so-long-farewell

FILM Took It To The River: https://www.rehanmudannayake.com/took-it-to-the-river




Dee Gibson is the award winning designer and founder of boutique hotel Kalukanda House in Sri Lanka, www.kalukandahouse.com ~ Conde Nast Best Places to Visit in Asia 2024 & HIP Hotels Best Hotels 2025. You can follow on
instagram @deegibson2017 or @kalukandahouse

This podcast lifts the veil on what, and more importantly WHO this island is with conversations about all the things you never read about in the travel pages. Dee showcases a fascinating modern society reclaiming their identity and taking ownership of their narratives on the global stage. No subject is taboo so expect guests talking about everything from activism through art and yoga, why sari was modified by British colonisers, a performance on love and lust to episodes on forgotten heroines being narrated back into our history books and much more.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Sri Lanka, modern perspectives from an ancient melting pot. The podcast that lifts the veil on what and more importantly who makes up this beautiful island. In each episode, I chat to a fascinating guest, creative people with positive impact who you don't get to hear about and I think you really should know about. After all, travel can be expansive and regenerative. and is best served with a healthy dose of people interaction. This is the island I get to see, and I want to share with all of you. In this episode, I speak to actor, author, and director, Rehan Mudanayake. Rehan first found wider fame on our screens as the love interest in the film Funny Boy, based on the book by Shyam Sabadurai. He was cast by the acclaimed and award-winning director Deepa Mehta, when she remembered him as a set-hand working for her ten years earlier. With no acting experience, Rehan won the part and dived into a story that explores the sexual awakening of a Sri Lankan boy who falls in love with a male classmate, just as political tensions escalate in Sri Lanka. Having an international childhood and spending time at a Catholic school in the UK, Rehan fought to follow his dream into the arts. He talks about why he loves living in Brixton, and how it inspires him to write every single day. He's written and directed several short films, including a new series called Cougar, which he also co-stars in with Sri Lankan comedian Vidura Bihar. Rehan wants to change the narrative on how brown people are portrayed in film and brings a comedy and lightness of touch to deeper themes. We speak just before he's ready to fly to LA to shoot a starring role in an upcoming film. I'm really excited today to have a rather fabulous and talented actor, director and writer, Rehan Madanaike. Welcome to my podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for having me on, Dee.

SPEAKER_01:

It's lovely to see you. It looks like you're sitting in sunny London. You're not in Sri Lanka at the moment,

SPEAKER_00:

are you? I am. I am in my dreamy bedroom in Brixton. I do All of my writing from my bed, which is where I'm seated right now. Very quiet. It's very calm. It's very peaceful. I can hear the birds chirping outside. And the sun's out.

SPEAKER_01:

It's funny because I can hear the birds in the background and you don't often think of Brixton and birds.

SPEAKER_00:

No, not at all. No, the perfect environment to write in. Like I find I can't write in coffee shops or cafes. I find them too distracting. I have to do all my writing from my bedroom. from my bed um so yeah

SPEAKER_01:

wow that's really interesting so how do you separate your bedroom from sleep and then do work that's quite tricky for quite a few people to manage

SPEAKER_00:

um I I don't know that's a really good question I start writing the moment I wake up um I don't yeah I Don't drink anything. I don't eat anything. I open my laptop up and I start work immediately because I find I lose focus otherwise. I suppose I've turned my bedroom into my little sanctuary and it feels very comfortable. It feels very sort of calm and peaceful.

SPEAKER_01:

We're diving straight in. But that's really interesting as a creative process because have you heard of the book The Artist's Way? Oh

SPEAKER_00:

my gosh, I was talking about it. Yeah, I have heard of it. I haven't read it, but someone was telling me about this just a week ago and how they...

SPEAKER_01:

Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm going to Google it while we're talking. But the whole premise of this book is, as a writer and as a creative, to just wake up in the morning and to start and just download... So I guess that's kind of

SPEAKER_00:

what you're doing. Right. You write three pages a day, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. By Julia Cameron. There

SPEAKER_00:

we

SPEAKER_01:

are. You write three pages a day. And the whole idea is that it's a stream of consciousness. You do it as soon as you get up. So you're like, you've just mentioned, there's no distraction with coffee.

SPEAKER_00:

No salons, no nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm saying. and so that's interesting that that is naturally part of your process and it's it's clearly working for you

SPEAKER_00:

it's vital and it's vital to me that I write every single day even if it's even if it's just half a page or a page. Yeah, it's so key to my process. Thanks for reminding me about the artist's way because I had the longest conversation with someone just a few days ago about the artist's way. Yeah, I need to get on it. I need to get on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it sounds like you're

SPEAKER_00:

doing it, to be honest. Yeah, maybe I am.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, part two. Yes, exactly. So we're already talking about your creative inspiration do you find Brixton to be a vibey place is that because you grew up in Sri Lanka didn't you so I'm sort of mixing up all my questions now but we'll come come on to your upbringing but do you find being immersed in London and Brixton and for those who don't know it it is another melting pot it's another melting pot of so many different cultures and sounds and smells and people but very up close and personal isn't it in Brixton so does that help with your

SPEAKER_00:

inspiration in a multitude of different ways I mean since moving here I mean I've really found an abundance of inspiration in Brixton. I mean, not only do I feel fortunate to live in the greatest city in the world, I'm sure you'll agree with me on that one, but I love being based in Brixton specifically. It's just so electric. I love how diverse it is. I mean, where else in London would you find Christian preachers on megaphones, anti-protesters, live music right on your doorstep? It's the wildest place. And yeah, I love being based there. When move anywhere else in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's incredible. And how did you end up in Brixton?

SPEAKER_00:

Gosh, I moved to South London about two years ago. I was in East before that. However, this little love affair with South London actually began long before. Not a lot of people know this, but when I was nine, we lived in the tiniest two bed in Tooting, just down the road from here.

SPEAKER_02:

Did

SPEAKER_00:

you? Yeah, yeah, crazy. So some of my earliest memories of South London are of the vegetable markets outside Broadway Station, Sri Lankan curries at Jaffna House.

SPEAKER_01:

That's still going

SPEAKER_00:

strong. Still going strong,

SPEAKER_01:

right? Still a hot favourite,

SPEAKER_00:

yes. Exactly. The yummiest sort of comatose-inducing Pakistani food at Laho Karahi. Again, still going strong.

SPEAKER_02:

Still

SPEAKER_00:

going strong. I mean, the street markets are gone, but like the restaurants remain, albeit it's more like a more gentrified version. What was my introduction to South London? And it's just funny that I ended up back here. It's a strange one.

SPEAKER_01:

Can we just talk a little bit about your upbringing then? Because it sounds that even at a young age, you were sort of moving between continents and countries. What was your young life like? Where was that? Was that in Sri Lanka?

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, I was born in Lanka and I feel like I spent part of my life there, part of my life over here. So I went to school in Sri Lanka and then ended up at an all-boys Catholic boarding school in the countryside here, which was the most bizarre, the most homogenous experience ever. It was... A very, very white place. I mean, I might have been the only South Asian student in the entire school. So it was very strange going from school in Sri Lanka, where I was just one of many Sri Lankans.

SPEAKER_01:

Everyone looks like

SPEAKER_00:

you. Everyone looked like me to boarding school here in the countryside, where the only other brown person around was the cricket coach. Who's the man? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Did he happen to be Sri

SPEAKER_00:

Lankan? No, he was Indian. And I remember him getting really excited when he found out that a Sri Lankan had joined. Poor guy, little did he know, couldn't afford a bat to save my life. But yeah, I remember the place being... I mean, after having spent a fair bit of time in Lanka, I remember... England being very cold, the students being very unfriendly. And I don't know what they gave us to eat, but it was definitely inedible. Yeah, it was a strange sort of, it was a strange experience. And I kind of struggled through the first few terms, but went on to have a blast. And it kind of, it introduced me to one of my best friends who still works in film. And I ended up having the best time ever. After that, I went straight to university. all over the place. I went to university in UCL, went to university in Canterbury, went to university in Amsterdam, where I studied like a blend of cinema, politics, history, and cultural studies with

SPEAKER_02:

a

SPEAKER_00:

focus on film, because I knew from like a very young age that I wanted to be a filmmaker. And I think studying in Amsterdam and London in particular were very, very defining experiences. I think being very cosmopolitan cities, I was surrounded by people from all over the globe who really broadened my perspective on cinema. I think living in both metropolises also really made me realise I was a city kid at heart. Couldn't maybe live in a small town or village. I think the idea of living in a small town actually gives me anxiety. I need to be around people who look like me, especially given the weird times we live in. So I feel really grateful to have ended up in South London to be based in this part of the country. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

thank you for sharing that. That is just a really interesting background. I always like to ask people because it shapes so much of who we are at any given point in

SPEAKER_02:

time.

SPEAKER_01:

And I find that when I speak to people who are in the creative industries particularly, there is an interesting backstory that's led to them finding an artistic pursuit, I suppose, which helps them express all sorts of things, you know, their views on the world, political leanings or things that they want to sort of advocate for. So it's interesting. And obviously I'm going to touch on, I'm going to touch on the subject of your father because clearly there's a sort of a lineage of creative talent from your parents. So Ashok Ferry, who's also been on this podcast, uh, also told me that he had spent some time in southwest London. I wonder, as a young Sri Lankan, having had creative parents, did you find that they were much more open to you going into a creative life?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes and no. I... I had to fight. I had to fight to study what I wanted to study. I had to fight to be a filmmaker. So my mom was an enormous influence on my love for cinema and filmmaking. She had this chunky 35-mil point-and-shoot Olympus camera that she'd capture people in places with. I remember some of my earliest memories of following her around as a child and watching her load her camera with film, taking portraits of family members. In fact, I think I may have learned how to load 35 mil into a point and shoot as young as four.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know. Insane. I mean, I think I inherited my cinematic eye from her. And this then inspired me to sort of pick up a video camera later on and start telling stories. My dad, when I was nine, he bought me a video camera. like a little camcorder the size of my palm. It's like a

SPEAKER_01:

birthday.

SPEAKER_00:

And I started making these terrible little home videos of my sister, which I'm very embarrassed about, which no one shall ever see. Yeah, I think by the time I was 14, I was sort of, taking this camera into school, filming my friends getting into fights. We'd make these sort of unfiltered, guerrilla-style documentaries on us.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, fab. Docudramas.

SPEAKER_00:

Docudramas, yeah, very much so. So I think it all kicked off when I was very young. My parents would rent a lot of films as well. So I think my knowledge of contemporary cinema developed from a very young age, developed TV dinners, where I sort of became obsessed with contemporary Hollywood cinema, discovered Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and then later on, on my own sort of discovered some of my favorite directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, and Richard Linklater. But yeah, I mean, even then, I had to really fight to study anything film-based. By the time my sister came along, I think my dad had warmed to the idea that He was much more open to her studying English in theater. Hasan Minhaj has that great line in, I think it's in Homecoming King, where he has this great line. He says, you know, mom and dad were my Vietnam. I had to fight. I had to fight. You could do whatever you wanted to do. So yeah, I feel like that was very much my experience. But yes, I would say, yeah, it was a creative household.

SPEAKER_01:

You can see... um because you have so many strings to your bow actor writer director you can actually see how familial influences but then your own curiosity sort of wove this path to where you are right now maybe you see things with a different eye but you see them as a writer and a filmmaker, but you're also telling stories. You're not taking someone else's. You're sort of doing the whole kit and caboodle, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I feel like filmmaking is a blend of, I mean, it's kind of a blend of all the other arts. You're essentially painting visuals with the camera. You are, you are writing, you're composing music, you're doing all these different things, you know, and bringing them together and blending them into a into one sort of coherent piece

SPEAKER_01:

well we've just been talking about white lotus before we came on yes yes talking about series three and i've heard that about mike white you know because what a cracking set of set of dramas but he takes full control of everything doesn't he the music the visuals

SPEAKER_00:

he's a genius he's an

SPEAKER_01:

he's a genius but i suppose you're well Who knows, Rehan, maybe the next Mike White. I'm talking to them right now. Hey, you got a drink, baby. But the idea of you've just sort of painted of having this blank canvas and you're pulling all of these different elements together and you're not kind of giving any of it away because you've got a vision is a wonderful skill to

SPEAKER_00:

have. It's exciting. It's also terrifying. because you're always starting with a blank page unless you're adapting someone else's work but I tend to write my own work so it's always daunting coming up with an idea but once I've gotten the idea it's I just feel I don't know I feel a sense of excitement and then the writing process actually doesn't take very long for me but it's just coming up with that idea and yeah the terror of being faced with a blank page I suppose um

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, if you're writing every day, then hopefully you won't ever get writer's block and things will come out. You'll just start stream consciousness of ideas. So let's just roll back a little bit because most people will have first heard of you through your part in Funny Boy, which I really want to talk about because that's such an amazing story and incredible production. But how does a millennial Sri Lankan break onto stage? And how did you end up, you know, getting this part? Tell me everything you can about Funny Boy. How you ended up there and what the story meant to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, good question. So I basically lied to get the role. I had never acted before. Not in films, nor on stage. But I had worked for Deepa Mehta, who directed it, when I was, how old was I? I was 19, I think. I crewed on her film, Midnight's Children. I was an assistant set decorator. For those of you who don't know what an assistant set decorator is, it's a glorified term for labourer. I don't know. Dog spotting. Oh my gosh, yes, yes. Yeah. So I did the one as 19, then 10 years passed, and she woke up in the middle of the night, and she remembered my face from set all those years back.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and she asked her PA to drop me an email, so her PA sent me an email saying, you know, Deepa would like to know whether you act. To which I said, sure, of course I act.

UNKNOWN:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Every

SPEAKER_01:

day?

SPEAKER_00:

Every day, all the time. Wait and lie, I'd never acted a day in my life. Of course, I immediately regretted saying this when they sent me five or six scenes to self-tape by the following day. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm definitely not going to get this. They're going to give this to someone qualified, someone who's been to drama school, who actually deserves it. But I'm going to give it my best shot. So I did one round of auditions, got my housemate to shoot me on my iPhone in my living room. And I sent those off. The next day, Deepa messaged me and she said, how are you? I know it's been a while. We watched your auditions. Interesting. And the very next line was, could you maybe try out... the next round of auditions. It was a two-line email. So I read at the tapes. I sent them off to her and then she responded the very next day and she was like, that was good, but I want you to get up. I want you to walk around. I want you to use the space around you. Use the props in your living room. Come on, impress me. Gosh, I remember like shaking. So she

SPEAKER_01:

really wanted you though, didn't she? She was pushing you to kind of give more,

SPEAKER_00:

but she really wanted you. It was terrifying, you know? I mean, when you get that sort of email from like an Oscar nominated director, it was like, oh my gosh, the pressure's really on now. So I redid the tapes. So I auditioned three times and then I didn't hear anything from them. And then I started to worry. I was like, oh my gosh, did they get the tapes? You know, did the WeTransfer files go through? yeah oh god because I was based in London at the time I was doing my I was writing my pieces and they were in Toronto but then some weeks later I got a call on my phone and it was her and she said Rehan we loved your auditions and we'd love to cast you as Jehan and what she said to me was we want you to play this role I mean you got this role because you were able to take my direction and I think You directing shorts for the last seven years played a huge part in this. And yeah, we thought you were wonderful. And are you free in October? And as luck would have it, I can finish my...

SPEAKER_01:

You cleared your diary of everything that was in it.

SPEAKER_00:

I finished my monsters in September. So I was like, this is perfect timing. Of course I'm free, you know. She's like, great, we'll fly you back out to Sri Lanka. I was like, wonderful, let's go. So

SPEAKER_01:

she just... remembered you in the middle of the night and the timing worked out perfectly i believe in kismet so much and um maybe as well because she knew you from all those years ago she kind of knew who you were and could see that if you could just be you in a certain

SPEAKER_02:

way

SPEAKER_01:

you know you play the part perfectly and and boy did you but it's a film that covers a lot of complex issues personal cultural and did you spend a lot of time thinking about how you were going to portray in fact why don't you just explain for everyone who's listening what the film's about because i don't want to put words in your mouth and then you know what the challenges were and how you came about acting this amazing part

SPEAKER_00:

so um funny boy is it's based on a very famous novel that came out in the 90s, also called Funny Boy. It's a very famous queer novel. The story is essentially about a young boy coming to terms with his sexuality in the lead-up to Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war. I don't play the boy, but I play the love interest. And that in itself came with a tremendous amount of responsibility because I knew it was a beloved book. These are beloved characters that had a huge, huge following. And I think they've been trying to make the film since the 90s. They've been trying to make the film since the 90s. I think Gurinder Chadha actually had the rights to it first. And then it got passed around and then fell into Deepa's hands. And Deepa was like, fantastic, I'm going to get out there and make this film. But yeah, I remember I'd read the book when I was very young and... Yes, felt a little intimidated about playing the role. It's

SPEAKER_01:

incredibly moving, isn't it? It's really.

SPEAKER_00:

It really is. And I think, yeah, I mean, personally, I didn't want to, I didn't want to impersonate what Shyam Salvadori, the writer of Deepa, had written on the page. I think different as one might be to the character being played, I think it's always important to bring a bit of yourself to every role you're playing. So preparing for the role, It really forced me to reflect on myself as a Sri Lankan. You know, my friendships, my school life, my relationships, my politics, my ethnicity, like all my biases. I even remember bringing some of my own clothes onto set and wearing them as costumes. So I think incorporating aspects of my own story into the performance really helped me immerse myself into the character. That was like the first step, from what I can remember, The second step of the process allowed me to understand my character, Shahan, Shahan Saiki. In particular, like his insecurities and his hurt. Deepa conducted this wonderful three-day workshop. She does this for each film that she makes. The three-day workshop based on the Nathya Shastra, which is an ancient Indian dramaturgical text, which... which I think it was written like 500 years ago for artists. And this workshop really forced me to confront Shahan's tragic past, character's tragic past. And I remember doing a series of sort of warmups and exercises. There was one exercise in particular that really threw me into the deep end, taught me to empathize with the character's flaws and insecurities rather than to judge. And it was a particularly challenging exercise. where they asked me to chop down an invisible tree in front of me. So I spent 15 minutes. I went up in front of the other leads in the film. So there were maybe five of us, I think, in the room. That's the workshop director and Deepa. So I went up by myself and I was asked to chop a tree down. So I'm chopping and I'm chopping and I'm chopping. I'm chopping for like 15 minutes, right? And 15 minutes in, I start to, I could feel like my back, starting to ache right I then look in front of me and there's like an enormous pool of sweat in front of me and oh my gosh I just remembered being so painful but yeah I think it was like 15 like 10-15 minutes in Deepa turned around and Deepa was like right I want you to select a line that your character says and I want you to repeat that line So I selected a particularly offensive line my character comes up with, and I must have repeated it about two or 300 times. And this repetition exercise made me realize that the character says what he says because he's in a world of tremendous pain where he's been denied the love of those around him, you know, family and now his lover. And I felt this both sort of physically and emotionally for the first time. And I think that was the first day that I felt like I could really pull off the role. Of course, I couldn't walk for like a week after that. I think I destroyed my body in those 15 minutes. It was like painful even sitting down. I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. But

SPEAKER_01:

how did that affect you emotionally when you were being pushed like that, physically and emotionally? How does that, when you then come out of character and you say goodbye and See you guys tomorrow. I mean, when you go home, are you still carrying around all of the anger and the vitriol and the pain and the hurt

SPEAKER_00:

in your body? I try not to. I mean, I know that each actor's process is very different. And there's been a lot of conversation around this in the last few years, especially with those last few seasons of Succession and different actors working in different ways. I try to leave that stuff behind personally. Yeah, I think I was very lucky with this film that I didn't feel physically or emotionally drained. And I think that was specifically because I felt very supported and very held by Deepa and by her team.

SPEAKER_01:

Is it a case of once you've kind of released and felt that emotion? when you're then called on to actually film that scene, for example, can you then immediately tap into it because you've been there before and so you can access it more easily? Or do you kind of have to warm up each time?

SPEAKER_00:

I had to warm up. Yeah, I had to warm up, especially before some of the very dramatic scenes. I had to, I think, yeah, there's a scene where I get into an argument and the argument turns into a fight, into like a physical fight. And I remember having to, having to shut myself away for like, yeah, the two hours preceding that film. So I didn't talk to anyone. I, I, yeah, I had to kind of, I just separate myself from the crew and from the cast. And then when they were ready to shoot, they were like, okay, cool, we're good to go. And then I walked onto set and I was in. I was like, yes, exactly. I felt so immersed in that moment that I felt like my focus was razor sharp. So I personally feel like I need a bit of distance before shooting more sort of dramatic scenes. There were other scenes. Having said that, there were other scenes where I'm trying to think of. Oh my gosh. I mean, there were love scenes. I had to do love scenes for this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I was going to ask you about

SPEAKER_00:

that. That was terrifying in itself. I remember being very nervous. Yeah, people wanted spontaneity for some of the love scenes because it was happening to two teenage characters for the first time. And she saw me seated by myself on the sofa at 6 a.m. in the morning before I shot my first love scene. And she came up to me and she said, Are you all right? And I was like, Vipa, I'm actually feeling really nervous right now. And she was so sweet about it. She said, listen, don't overthink these things. Love scenes are really boring. They're really technical. Yeah, she was like, what did she say to me? She said, yeah, I've shot heterosexual love scenes. I've shot same-sex love scenes. Yeah, they're very boring. They're very technical. So don't read into it too much. The makeup artist, of course, was like, I've got mints if you need them. but she was but she was right you know um what she so what she did during that scene was she she directed us while the camera was rolling okay she was giving us very very specific actions so i feel like that helped um and it was very practical So

SPEAKER_01:

you were choreographed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it was very, very choreographed, you know. And I think much of it involved following instructions and just sort of letting go and not getting inside your own head and not allowing the more sort of cerebral intellectual side to take over.

SPEAKER_01:

I can imagine it's incredibly awkward. And as an actor, you've kind of just got to put that aside. But as a human, it's very difficult sometimes to do isn't

SPEAKER_00:

it yeah absolutely because the moment you overanalyze you start to create these obstacles in your mind and you know you start to cultivate that fear

SPEAKER_01:

very much so I'm interested if I can just stay on this subject a bit longer because since I've been working in Sri Lanka and I've got to know more people I mean in 2025 things were a lot better but even back in 2017 2018 the idea of um you know, same-sex relationships was, it was quite taboo even back then. And I have friends who are in same-sex relationships in the course of the last seven years, particularly obviously Aragaliah in, when was that, 2023, I think? Yeah, where there was a real reshaping of culture So you made the film, obviously, before all of that. And how was it received in Sri Lanka? And what was the feedback? Because when the author wrote the book, it was obviously very controversial. But then even making it into a film would have been, I imagine, quite controversial too. Gosh,

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, the feedback was incredibly positive in Sri Lanka. I expected that to be... Yeah, I expected there to be more controversy in Sri Lanka given the LGBTQ themes. But ironically, there was none of that. And in fact, I was back in Sri Lanka this last December, January, in what it's been like a couple of years now since the film came out. And I took part in a literary festival and there were still people coming up to me wanting to take pictures with me, telling me about how... how inspired they were by the film and how much it changed their lives. I expected that to be so much more controversial.

SPEAKER_01:

I guess it was just a question really from me because there has been a real softening in the conservative nature of Sri Lanka as a nation and, you know, much, much more inclusive. And this is, I guess, a landmark film.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

21st century for that

SPEAKER_00:

I mean it's not to say that there isn't work to be done I mean

SPEAKER_01:

absolutely

SPEAKER_00:

but yeah I speak to a lot of my friends I speak to my queer friends in the community and many of them tell me that things have improved there's obviously a ton of work to be done

SPEAKER_01:

but anyway moving on from that I just I was just wanted to hear what the feedback was like having sort of come to that so thank you for sharing because it's an extraordinary experience point in your career in terms of professionally did it propel you forward and accelerate your onward moving into directing and filming

SPEAKER_00:

and yeah absolutely I mean I think it really changed my life I mean as a director I was so inspired by Deepa's boldness and her passion and singular vision. You know, I feel like I learned how to communicate my own directorial vision more authentically, more respectfully. I always say that directing is essentially problem solving, but directing with Deepa is advanced problem solving. You know, what would take me half an hour to figure out, Deepa would figure out in a matter of minutes. Insane, absolutely insane working with such an experienced, such an overwhelmingly overwhelmingly talented director um has it opened doors yeah absolutely i was in fact as yeah i was just cast directly off my performance in funny boy um i'm shooting a film in la i'll be playing a lead role in a feature called dancing in the dark

SPEAKER_02:

we're

SPEAKER_00:

shooting hopefully shooting in summer um the director and the producer of that film reached out to me specifically because they'd seen my performance in Funny Boy. So I'm very fortunate that Funny Boy has led to other projects. Are

SPEAKER_01:

you allowed to share what the story is about and what your part is?

SPEAKER_00:

I think I could say it's a political comedy drama, which I'm very excited about because I have more experience in the dramatic sphere, but I was really drawn to the script because of the more comedic elements to it. Yeah, it's really exciting. It's about a group of Sri Lankans living in LA. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

We're talking about your comedic leanings. You've already made a number of shorts, but you've got to talk about what you've been working on right now.

SPEAKER_00:

I recently created a comedy series called Cougar. which is about a brown man dating in London. It stars myself and the incredible Sri Lankan comedian Vidhara Biyar. And yeah, I guess the premise is by a comic lens, like the series explores issues one has to grapple with as a brown man in the West. Issues like dating hierarchies, the exoticization of brown skin, internalized racism, the colonization of the brown set by the white man. So, I mean, very serious themes, but immersed within a lighthearted comedy. Yeah, I mean, I wrote and sort of co-directed the pilot about like five, six months ago, and I put it out on my Instagram and people really responded to it. I think it garnered like hundreds of thousands of views. So I was, I mean, I was really surprised and really flattered by the response by what this film, first foray into comedy writing that I've basically written the rest of the series, which I want to shoot.

SPEAKER_01:

And is there a story arc from one episode to the next? Okay, so it's going to follow your... And are we going to find out who the cougar

SPEAKER_00:

is? And cougar will make an appearance.

SPEAKER_01:

And so how did the story come about?

SPEAKER_00:

How did it come about? Good question.

SPEAKER_01:

And also casting Vidara as well. How did that come about? Because you make such a great duo on screen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, he's wonderful. Vidara is a really close friend of mine. We met about four years ago and I'd always meant to write him something, but it, yeah, kept putting it off, kept putting it off. And then I think I wrote, I actually wrote Cougar a couple of years ago now. Yeah. but it just kind of stayed on my computer. I wanted to write something short, something punchy, something funny. I feel like whenever we see our narratives portrayed on screen as brown people, yeah, I feel like there's a lot of trauma porn out there, and I kind of wanted to move away from that. I wanted to write something that tackles serious issues, but something that was funny, you know? something that people could laugh about. I feel like that's where it began. And we were talking about The Artist's Way earlier on. This scene began one morning where I just kind of opened my laptop out and I started writing a conversation between two people, two best friends. And then that turned into the pilot episode. But I wanted to explore the life of A brown man who hasn't, who's really a bit of a child. He hasn't really grown up. He struggles. I think he struggles in the dating world. I think struggles to connect with women. I see him as a very, very complex character. A man child. Yes, a bit of a man child. A bit of a man child.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it sounds like you'll be exploring also how the series develops personally. with your process as well because it really sounds like this it sort of comes from within and you drop it onto the page and it it just makes sense because you're allowing it to sort of percolate in the back of your mind and I

SPEAKER_00:

hope so I mean I tried to pack as much as possible into it's like the pilot's only like three minutes long but I tried to much as possible into those three minutes so The pilot feels very much like a tennis match. It's these two people having this sort of very quick kind of conversation. So there's like a lot of back and forth and they're kind of gently teasing each other. I'm so excited to develop the rest of the series. Yeah, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01:

You must have heard of the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

SPEAKER_02:

amongst

SPEAKER_01:

other things. She's an amazing writer. I mean, she wrote that book, gosh, over 20 years

SPEAKER_02:

ago.

SPEAKER_01:

But she's also a real sort of thinker about things and the creative process. And she says there are ideas that go around the world and the idea lands with the right person at the right time.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_01:

so that writer, she's also a writer as you are. will kind of grab the idea and run with it because it's with the right person. And she also says that you kind of have to really be tuned into that. You have to be like an antenna to pick up these ideas, to pick up the winning ideas and to get them off the page and create them. So what you've talked about, I don't know, I'm sort of getting this sense of you just waking up having had a night of, I don't know, astral... flying in your dreams and the ideas sort of crystallize.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I feel like the idea really came from within my subconscious and then turned into this whole, turned into this series.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because we're exploring these themes, aren't you? I mean, this feels like a theme in itself. During this conversation, it really feels like you're really thinking about all of these different aspects of of life, whether you're acting or writing or directing and trying to get these messages into your work.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I do also want to touch on another short that you did called So Long, Farewell. It's a film about choosing a personal dream over familial obligations, something that many of us are very up-close and personal with. And so how does that film about is any of that based on personal experience as well or observations or what are you trying to say

SPEAKER_00:

I mean so long farewell as you describe very articulately is you know it's about a middle-aged British Sri Lankan man who's forced to choose between taking his dream job in Amsterdam and caring for his elderly granny his Archie in London and I was very keen to explore but brown parent-child relationships and interrogate the expectations and the responsibilities that accompany them so it's yeah it's very much a story about allegiances to one's family and one's culture and community versus that is oneself you know and one's career I mean yeah I think it's a very brown story but one that has unexpectedly sort of resonated with lots and lots of different communities, not just those of color. Yeah, the character of Archie, the grandmother character in particular, was inspired by my dad's mom, whom I built a narrative around. I was also very keen to, I think, write a film about the British Sri Lankan community, who I feel have been grossly underrepresented in British cinema. In fact, I think this might be one of the first, if not the first British Sri Lankan singular language films. I wrote this during the pandemic and when I first wrote it, it really felt like I was writing about an experience far removed from my own. I couldn't have been more wrong though. myself on a similar situation to the lead character in the film and I remember sitting my parents down and telling them that I'd made this very sort of serious life decision and you know the response was not an entirely enthusiastic one I remember it getting very sort of surreal when I showed them the film and there was pin drop silence in the room and it was funny I could tell in that moment that they were feeling what the grandmother character was feeling and I could, they were feeling, I guess, which is a very roundabout way of saying that I may have, again, coming back to the, you know, the Sully point, like subconsciously sort of written about myself and my own experiences before that even happened. Yeah. It's always a funny one. I think the most personal is always the most powerful. And I always try and dig into, dig deep inside, you know, when writing. And it's

SPEAKER_01:

just a real sort of deep well of experience and thinking as well. And the thing that I really caught onto about the concept of this film is just we live in a selfish world, don't we? We can do anything that we want. We can travel, you know, within reason, obviously, depending on how lucky you are. We have choices. And my parents' generation... were very much about family obligations came above everything else. And we kind of created a world around us where we choose ourselves above everything else. And it's quite interesting because it's a real push-pull. And as you say, it's not just a Sri Lankan thing, but it's interesting

SPEAKER_02:

to watch.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, what do you do when you've got a dream and at the same time you have to... you know, go and look after someone else. It's tricky.

SPEAKER_00:

It's tricky. It's very tricky. It's terrifying. It's like you've got this sword hanging over your head, you know. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. One of life's big kind of quandaries. I'd really love it if there's any way we could include a couple of links if you've, you know, to your work.

SPEAKER_00:

The films that are sort of still doing the festival circuit, you know, I mean, if people want to watch them, they can also reach out to me on Instagram and I can send them links. We send through some of the public links for you to add in, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll put that all in the show notes. But we're coming to the end of our time. Yeah. And it always feels so short. I just feel like I only just scratched the surface and, you know, we start to sort of come to the end. I just wonder if you've got any kind of thoughts for anyone out there who's listening, who thinks, I really want to be like Ray Hutton. I want to get into film, be a writer, be a director. You know, how can people out there Think about making their steps into this industry. And I'm sure that you've had your challenges

SPEAKER_02:

too.

SPEAKER_01:

But you've got that now. And what tips would you give them?

SPEAKER_00:

I think persistence. Persistence is absolutely key. I think coming back to an earlier point, try not to overthink. Try not to overanalyze. think it's better for you to write as much as you possibly can right from a personal place and then go out there if you want to if you want to be a filmmaker for example you know right from a personal place get out there and shoot it yeah don't shut it away don't shut it away I think it's important to just kind of create just continue creating and to not overanalyze perfection really is the enemy of creativity it's a rut you don't want to get stuck into so yeah don't overthink don't overanalyze create I'd say that's really the best advice I can give.

SPEAKER_01:

That's just almost the perfect way to end this episode. Just keep creating. Yeah. Rehan, it's been such a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much for sharing and delving into different areas. There's a lot to cover in an hour. So you've given us real insight into you sitting in your chair Creative space in Brixton, producing all these amazing stories. Can't wait to see you in Dancing in the

SPEAKER_00:

Dark. Oh, cheers. Thank you so much for having me on, Dee. I really appreciate it.

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