What makes a good sequel? For filmmaker PS Mithran, it begins with the characters. His favourite sequel, after all, is Terminator 2, for how it builds on the character arcs established in the first film. “In the Terminator films, Sarah Connor and John Connor are the characters that bring some depth to the story. So a great sequel should have good character continuity, be it Avatar, Rocky Balboa, or Fast and Furious.” And Mithran now hopes that his upcoming film, Sardar 2, starring Karthi, will be a good sequel to his 2022 spy thriller. The director admits he isn’t in a calm state of mind in the days leading up to the release. “The final mixing is going on. So what we are experiencing now are the last few days of labour pains.”Mithran thought of an idea for a sequel to Sardar while shooting a prison sequence in the film. “I always end my films with an open ending, and while shooting Sardar, I realised the titular character had a lot of unexplored potential to tap into. I could tell a lot of stories about him.” However, since he had to focus on shooting Sardar, he didn’t give the sequel idea any further thought. “Then, after the release, when Karthi sir and I were flying back to Chennai from Hyderabad, we discussed the idea for Sardar 2, and I started building that storyline.”Mithran felt exhausted thinking about Sardar — remember, this is a character that has been on his mind since before the pandemic. “So I took a break from Sardar, and I even did three other scripts.” But everything changed once he cracked SJ Suryah’s antagonist character. We have seen Suryah play negative roles recently; however, this is a script tailor-made for him, says Mithran. “He is who he is because of his histrionics. We can’t cut that out of him. We can alter the meter of his performance, which is what I have done; you will see both a subtle Suryah and a quintessential Suryah in Sardar 2.”