Prithviraj Sukumaran’s latest release ‘Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life)’ has been performing well at the box office.
The film draws inspiration from the life and experiences of Najeeb Muhammad alias Shukoor, who, in the ’90s, left his homeland for the Arabian Gulf states to support his family but ended up working as a slave/goatherd in a desert for over three years instead.
The actor recently met with Najeeb and talked about the latter’s life journey in detail.
During the conversation, Prithviraj Sukumaran told Najeeb, “In 2008, when Blessy first told me about doing this movie, my initial thought was, how do I approach this character? Do I come down and talk to you about who you really are, or do I try to understand the character Najeeb that Benyamin wrote or the Najeeb that Blessy has in his mind? This was the confusion I had. Finally, Blessy and I decided that I should play the Najeeb I visualise in my mind based on the novel and the Najeeb that Blessy visualised. That’s the Najeeb you’ll see in the movie. There is a big difference.”
Sharing his unending pain and torment of being trapped in the desert, Najeeb shared, “I always thought that I’ll never escape. There were no more Gods left for me to pray to. I prayed to every single God. Better than life there was death. Many times I used to just lie down on the sand so that some creatures would bite me and I would die. But then, when I woke up, all I thought about was my family. My wife was already 8 months pregnant when I landed there. Did she deliver a baby or not was the only thing I had in my mind.”
Produced by Visual Romance, The Goat Life also features Hollywood actor Jimmy Jean-Louis, Indian actors like Amala Paul and K.R. Gokul, along with renowned Arab actors such as Talib al Balushi and Rik Aby in pivotal roles. The film’s music direction and sound design are helmed by Academy Award winners A.R. Rahman and Resul Pookutty, respectively.