Amy Jackson opened the door of her car and ran out, crying: Vijay

Vijay’s

Madrasapattinam

, starring Arya in the lead, holds a lot of firsts for Amy Jackson – it was her first-ever film experience, and it was also the first-ever time that she stepped out of her country to come to a foreign land, India. The actress couldn’t agree more. She says, “Truthfully, every single aspect of the film industry – dancing, acting, language - was alien for me. So, I wanted to do very well at whatever I had set out to do. Before starting shoot, I immersed myself in the culture of India as well. Since I was going to be speaking in Tamil, I wanted to know about the background of the characters. I wanted to appreciate the culture rather than anything.”

Vijay, whom she considers her godfather, has a funny incident to narrate from the day she first landed in Chennai. “I had gone to pick her up from the airport. We had just left the premises when she told me, ‘Look, there’s a cow on the road!’ I was thinking in my head, ‘Innum ennenna animals paathuttu enna solla poralo’,” he chuckles.

Shooting days were also filled with several funny anecdotes. Highlighting her love for animals, Vijay tells us, “We were shooting in

Mount Road

, and it was super-hot, like 40 degrees. Suddenly, Amy opened the door of her car and ran out, crying. I was scared and didn’t know what had happened. Then, an assistant director told me that her mom was also crying. So, I went to find out what was wrong. Amy, between sobs, said, ‘I can’t see the horse suffering in hot sun. I want to adopt it’. We had actually got a horse for a sequence and he was loitering around during the break, and Amy couldn’t see the horse suffer. So, we led the horse to the shed-like structure we had created and gave him extra food. Only then did Amy calm down.”