Dressed in a smart blue shirt, Dr. V Sethuraman goes around his tastefully-done Zi Aesthetic and Laser clinic at Poes Garden with a smile. A few hours ago, he was just ‘Sethu’ and was in a studio dubbing for his third Tamil film, a horror-comedy titled Aaluku Padhi, in which he plays the lead along with a host of established names like Bala Saravanan, Mottai Rajendran and John Vijay.
The 31-year-old doctor-actor is best known for his debut film, Kanna Laddu Thinna Aasaiya , which he bagged when he had already set his sights on dermatology. He hails from a family of doctors — both his father (Dr. Viswanathan) and sister are gynaecologists — and he knew that that was his calling.
A medical degree at Annamalai University got him interested in dermatology. But that was also the time when he first came into contact with cinema, thanks to Santhanam, then a rising TV star gaining fame with his funny one-liners. “A friend who knew him had invited him for a college event,” he recalls, “We kept in touch after that and became close friends.”
Many years later, a statement he made in jest to Santhanam (‘Why don’t you make me a hero’) fetched him the lead role in the comic caper Kanna Laddu Thinna Aasaiya. Offers came in after that — but Sethu knew that he desired the doctor’s coat more than film costumes.
He trained under Dr. Ratnavel at Stanley Medical Hospital, went to Singapore for a fellowship at the National Skin Centre, and also trained under Dr. Jamuna Pai and Dr. Niteen Dhepe in Mumbai and Pune respectively. “We’re in the new era of dermatology,” he says, “Everyone wants to look young today.”
With Zi, which is set for a formal launch, he hopes to do exactly that. Meanwhile, he also hopes to multi-task at his clinic with films — by taking up one project at a time. “It is hard, especially because I’m in the aesthetic side that requires detailed sessions with patients,” he says. “My heart is mostly here, in the clinic, but the film sets give me a different high, something that I quite enjoy.”
