Why for Aishwarya Lekshmi and Arjun Das #Love is all about bonding with their characters
The Netflix Tamil series, set against the backdrop of the competitive dating apps industry, revives the old chemistry vs compatibility debate, as producer Soundarya Rajnikanth takes the opportunity to bring a ‘different’ Chennai on screen.
Aishwarya Lekshmi and Arjun Das play Tara and Matthew in series produced by Soundarya Rajnikanth.
When Soundarya Rajnikanth, producer and showrunner of the new Netflix Tamil series #Love got on board the project, one of the first things that she knew she wanted to do was “show Chennai in a different light, in a different way”. While the city is often perceived to be traditional or conservative in its way by outsiders and has often catered to that image on screen (think the 2014 Two States), here Soundarya, collaborating with director Balaji Mohan, sets a universal tale of love against the Chennai landscape where the traditional and the modern, as well as the unspoken in-between, create an interesting dynamism.
“I binge-watch a lot of series and that’s the reason I wanted to make a series as well. I understand that certain stories, especially those that have love at the core, or family values and life lessons, need to be told at a slower pace, which you can’t do in a theatrical, at least in Indian cinema. What one can say in the average 90-minute duration of a film versus in long-format content… [here] we get to live the characters a little bit more,” explains Soundarya, daughter of superstar Rajnikanth.
With the casting of the protagonists for the show, Aishwarya Lekshmi and Arjun Das, the producer says she “just got lucky”.
The love debate
Aishwarya and Arjun play Tara and Matthew in the series that is set against the backdrop of the dating app industry. While Tara is struggling to find investors for her app ‘Found’, Das is the main investor behind rival app Find My Bae. Their conflicting ideas of love find reflection in the respective apps.
While Tara seeks a slow-burn romance, where emotional compatibility between couples forms the foundation of a relationship, for Matthew, chemistry is the driving force for love.
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Both actors find something to identify with in their characters.
“I was more attracted to Tara as a person. The emotional core of what she is dealing with, her ideas on love, all of that came later. I was attracted to who she was as a person, how confused she was in love, how ambitious she was at work, because all of that reflected a lot of my thought processes and by the end of the show, I kind of borrowed Tara’s idea of love,” says Aishwarya.
For Arjun, the most interesting thing about his character was how he evolves through the episodes. “I like the fact that Mathew is looking for that spark at the start of it, but then how he eventually grows out to like both chemistry and compatibility, as his character also grows through all the episodes. I think the way it was written was something that really caught my attention. The small nuances, his equation with people around him and how he switches gears from being a man driven by adrenaline rush to seeking emotional connections is what drew me,” he explains.
When the chemistry chemistrifies between actors
Interestingly, Arjun reveals he and Aishwarya were supposed to do a film earlier. While that didn’t work out, the duo found a quick working rhythm on the sets of #Love.
“I think it starts from the writing. If they get the writing right, then the chemistry will chemistry. But also if the other actor is good, then work is so simple and easy,” says Aishwarya.
Over films, Arjun has built a reputation for playing characters who often border on volatility and psychological complexity, as seen in Kaithi (2019), Master (2021) and Aneethi (2023). He was also seen in the dark, messy romance Once More earlier this year. Has he found a cinematic home in these spaces?
“I’m just happy that now people are going to see me in different shades and different roles. Once More was a love story. In the movie before that I was playing a father’s character. So now to again come back to this genre of love, I generally consider myself very fortunate that directors and producers are offering me such roles, so that you know the audience also gets to see different sides of you in a show or in a movie,” says the actor, while slyly hinting that if things go well with #Love there might even be a second season to look forward to.
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A chat on an onscreen romance can’t be complete without a peek into the actors’ real-life status.
While both Aishwarya and Arjun say they are not on dating apps, what would their profiles say if they were to create one? “Met here for hook-ups,” is Aishwarya’s humorous take, while Arjun puts it simply, “An aspiring actor, meet me to get to know more,” wryly.
Both actors agree that unkindness and disrespect were the biggest red flags in relationships. There’s neither compatibility nor chemistry around that.
