Jayam Ravi began his career playing characters that provoked the audiences’ empathy. But over the years, the star has migrated towards full blown action-thrillers, preferring to enthral cinemagoers through exertion and physical activity.
“I see myself as a viewer before being an actor while listening to the scripts,” explains Jayam Ravi, on choosing experimental films such as Miruthan, Bogan and Tik Tik Tik, at a very early stage of his career. With Thani Oruvan, Ravi had reached an all-time high in his career and succeeded in carving out a niche for himself. Although 2016 saw just a single release (Miruthan), the Bhoologam actor has been on a signing spree and is anticipating a host of classic films to be released in the following years.
In this interview, Ravi talks about launching his kid Aarav, the significance of Bogan, and his prep up for the upcoming '350 crore high-budget period film Sangamithra, among other things. Ravi also reveals that for the first time, he plays a dual-dimensioned role in Bogan — one as a positive guy and the other, very negative.
“Bogan happened not because Lakshman (director) and I earlier teamed up for the film, Romeo Juliet. I was floored after listening to the script. I told him to work on it immediately, without any delay. Actually, he narrated it much before Thani Oruvan’s release. And he had the combination of Arvind Swami and me in his mind right at that time. It is totally Lakshman’s hard work and isn’t inspired by the Hollywood flick Face-off, as rumoured. Bogan is a crowd-pleasing film, which has everything like romance, action, thrill, myth, emotions and humour. Honestly, Bogan is one of the most important films in my career graph.”
Ravi reveals that it is for the first time that he is portraying a role with negative shades in Bogan. “My character’s name is Vikram and it’s a character with different shades. Sporting a role like this was a new experience,” he quips. On his co-star Hansika, the actor says, “I would say that this is Hansika’s best performance in her career.”
We probe him to comment on the fact that even Kamal Haasan and Vikram began experimenting with their characters at a much later stage in their respective careers, while he began as early as Peraanmai, where he did not even have a romantic pair — “I don’t want to get stuck with one genre. Unlike others, I constantly want to challenge myself with each film. I feel if I like the script, people will also like it. However, it’s not a planned one. Fortunately, good scripts are coming my way.”
Ravi is teaming up with Shakti Soundarrajan again for the film, Tik Tik Tik, which again is touted to have an intriguing script. “You can call it the India’s first space movie. More than my preparations for the role, putting the script together on paper for such a film, was an intimidating task. Shakthi and the unit have pulled it off extremely well,” he says.
Talking about his son Aarav, who is making his debut in TTT, Ravi proudly shares, “Aarav is a hyper active child and won’t sit in one place. He watches a lot of films, and sings well too. When Shakti wanted him for a character, I asked him if he was interested. His instant reply was, ‘Oh yes, appa!’. But, much to my surprise, he was very patient and focused while we shot for two days. He will also dub for his role.”
On Sangamithra, he reveals, “It is a humongous film with some of the big names like AR Rahman. I have a certain look in the movie. Sundar anna has given me certain references. I have time and it will go on floors mid-2017. being part of this project gives me a new high.” Vanamagan is another project with director Vijay, which Ravi is looking forward to.
