The Makers of ‘The Family Man 2’ Explain Reasons for Raji’s Dark Skin Tone

Amazon Prime’s web series ‘The Family Man 2’ has received some amazing reviews from viewers. Every actor’s performance has been applauded, be it Samantha Prabhu’s portrayal of Sri Lankan Tamil Liberation rebel ‘Raji’ or Manoj Bajpayee as intelligence officer Srikant Tiwari. 

Despite the good reviews, some viewers have questioned Raji’s s dark skin tone in the series. In a recent interview with Film Companion the makers of ‘Family Man’ Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK explained the reasons. 

The makers said: “Her character demanded that she had to be fit because she’s a military person.” They also stated that as “responsible filmmakers, they wanted to establish that the idea was not to propagate any context of beauty or race. It was as simple as what the character demanded.”

“This whole thing comes in the context of beauty when you’re trying to say dark skin is not beautiful and fair skin is beautiful… This is not that context, number one. There is no context of skin beauty in this. We are all shades of brown. Now, the idea is that if each one is a shade of brown, so it’s not about getting a different race to play this (character). It’s not a race thing either,” Raj said during the interview.

He further explained that Raji’s character was someone who wouldn’t have time to worry about self-care. 

He added, “Here we are trying to get the character of Raji right. We want her to speak it, we want her to look it, we want her to be that action girl who can land the punch, someone who can be physically fit and take on a guy double her size. That’s our main challenge. So if you look at what she wears… She’s a soldier, she’s a weather-beaten girl, there’s no time for worrying about self-care. If you’re a soldier in the Himalayas, your face is going to be red, that’s the makeup.”

Samantha had to take special training for three months to get into Raji’s character. She learned martial arts, learned a special dialect of Tamil, and she had to transform her outer appearance with regards to her hair, make-up, costume, and the manner she presented herself.  She’s also performed all the stunts on her own. ‘The Family Man 2’ was her first big digital debut.