The Kannada star on his origins, overcoming shyness to become an actor and appealing to audiences’ changing tastes.
Edited excerpts:
You joined an acting class in Bombay to get over your shyness. How does a very shy person transform into a very public actor?
It’s like love, you know. You keep meeting this girl and suddenly one day you realize you’ve been in love with this person. And when you ask exactly when you started loving this person, 90 percent of the people will fail to tell. We can’t really explain the process of cinema, learning… As for shyness, it was because I wasn’t exposed to working with women, holding women, looking into their eyes, and talking when they actually meant nothing to us.
You may need to hug someone who happens to be a woman who may be a huge star. You’ll have to express a body language that’s true. How do we hold our sisters? How do we talk to them? It’s the same in the case of the opposite gender too. Suddenly, there’s a man standing over there playing a father, uncle, brother, or hero. In the initial stages, it’s difficult (for an actor). As time goes by, you become a known personality and a senior in the industry, and things start easing up for you.
You’ve been through so many phases in your career. Would you say that for the next ten years, it will be tougher for you to pick the right story or project for various reasons, or do some of the old systems still work?
There is no old system anymore, and the new system is all about a lot of thinking, as to what to say next, to do next… There was a time earlier when ten scripts were narrated and we would’ve picked two or three out of that. We consider the face value of the producer, of the director and his saleability, who the heroine is, and being a good pair for the market — that was sufficient and we won half the battle. Then there was the music director — can he give me 2-3 good songs? Who is the stunt choreographer — can he give me 2-3 good fights? Now there’s the storyline, locations… So we have a minimum guarantee film in our hands.
Do you see that appealing to you right now? It won’t. If I had not cut the trailer in a certain way, if the visuals in it wouldn’t have appealed to you, or knocked even one tissue in your body, you wouldn’t be flying down all the way here to chat. There’s something that drove you. You felt there’s something I need to touch. It doesn’t exactly have to do with the budget of the film or something like what we did before. Something has to appeal. The moment someone starts telling you a hero introduction and suddenly there’s a song, you as a listener are already cut off and start questioning the necessity of it. You have to maintain your standard in a way that you can fit into any role.
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