Lokah actress Kalyani Priyadarshan says Dulquer Salman called ahead of film's release, said: ‘I don’t care if I lose money on this film'

He was like, ‘Don’t even look at the numbers. Just know, I am really happy as a producer.

The highly acclaimed Malayalam movie Lokah: Chapter 1 is doing really well at the box office and has  collected a whopping amount of Rs 165 crore worldwide in just 10 days of its release.

But before the release of the film, the team including Kalyani Priyadarshan, producer Dulquer Salman and the rest of the members were not sure about its success.

In an interview with Post-cut Clarity, Kalyani revealed that that Dulquer Salman had made a call to her before the release of the film.

“He (Dulquer) called me and said, I don’t care if I lose money on this film. I’m just glad we made a good film. Because we were sure we made a good film, whether it worked for the audience or not was not in our hands. He was like, ‘Don’t even look at the numbers. Just know, I am really happy as a producer. I think this is why we got into cinema. Whatever is said and done, even if it’s a small audience, the film will find it’," she said.

Lokah: Chapter 1 is the first part of the five-part universe film.  Kalyani said Dulquer Salman wanted to introduce Chandra’s story in the beginning.

“Considering it’s a universe and they could have gone with anyone. It started off a small film and it was supposed to be just Chandra’s story. When Dulquer came in, he saw it as something bigger. He saw the potential. They were like, ‘So we got all these characters now, maybe we can start with someone else’. But he said no, this is Chandra’s story. Let’s start with her. This is the window into the rest of the world. Let’s not change parts just because we thought of something a little more commercial," said Kalyanai.

Also read: Sai Pallavi wins Best Actress for Amaran at SIIMA 2025

In Lokah: Chapter 1, Chandra where Kalyani was seen portraying the title character, a yakshi (vampire) who is known as Neeli in folklore by the people.

Naslen, Sandy, Arun Kurian, Chandu Salimkumar, Nishanth Sagar, Raghunath Paleri, Vijayaraghavan, Nithya Shri, and Sarath Sabha are also featured in the Dominic Arun directed movie. There are cameos from Tovino Thomas and Dulquer, and Mammootty gave the voice for the character of Moothon.