You know an actor has loved the character they’ve portrayed recently when a photo of them in that role becomes their WhatsApp display picture. That’s the case with Chetan, whose antagonistic character Ragavendar in director Vetri Maaran’s latest Viduthalai Part 1 has bought him appreciation. “It’s such a multi-layered character,” starts Chetan, a well-known name in the television world whose first film release was also Vetri’s directorial debut, Polladhavan.
Incidentally, Chetan was on the lookout for a character with negative shades. “But none of the directors considered me for such a role. I don’t know what evil Vetri Maaran saw in me,” says a laughing Chetan, who talks about the filmmaker’s grit to go against the grain when it comes to casting . “Stereotyping is prevalent in the industry and very few directors break it. The casting of Soori, a comedian, as a hero in an action film is a huge risk. Even if a producer or director goes ahead with that risk, they’d pack the rest of the cast with stars to compensate. But Vetri has thought differently; for the supporting roles, he has gone with actors like Chandran, Munnar Ramesh and me. Such casting choices show that he is confident about his content and craft.”
Chetan with Gautham Menon and Soori in a still from ‘Viduthalai Part 1’ | Photo Credit: @SonyMusicSouth/YouTube
Chetan, apart from tapping into a part of his acting skill he never had the chance to portray on screen, also had to undergo a makeover to become Ragavendar. “He’ll have a thin moustache with hair swooped to one side. It added to the cunning, mean characterisation, I believe. I haven’t checked this with Vetri, but I think the inspiration for the look is from Hitler. I should ask him sometime.” Though there might have been a reference for his physical appearance, Chetan says the inspiration for how the character behaves isn’t from one person in particular. “There wasn’t a reference per se but these sorts of egoistic characters are people we, unfortunately, come across often. He’s someone who looks down upon his subordinates and given a chance, he’d do the same with those above him too. When Vetri explained the character to me, we spoke more about this person’s psychology and how he looks at everyone with contempt,” says Chetan “He also told me what the character goes through over the period shown in both parts of Viduthalai.”
Chetan has seen Vetri Maaran’s growth from their very first film together. “After Polladhavan, he told me that he’ll call me for the right role and even though it took so many years, I feel it was worth the wait. He might have grown in terms of personality and knowledge thanks to life experiences and the fact that he’s an avid reader. But, he has always had a solid grip on his craft,” says Chetan. “These days, films are shot in broad daylight and corrected to make them look like night shots, but all the night shots of Viduthalai were shot after dark. Shooting in the jungles is a difficult task. It took us a long time and we had to even jump from one vehicle to another to reach the shooting spot. The terrains were either steep or inclined and vehicles found it tough to wade through during the rains as the forest floor becomes slippery,” adds the actor.
If the terrain tested the team physically, some demanding sequences gave a sense of “heaviness in the air”. Elaborating on the torture sequences, Chetan says, “There are scenes where the village women are stripped off their clothes and though the actors wore body coloured dress and weren’t obviously naked, there was a sense of heaviness in our hearts. Vetri handled those sequences quite sensitively. Apart from the actors, there were minimal crew members present on location and the actors were given more clothes to cover themselves after each shot. He made sure none of them felt uncomfortable.” Chetan says there’s a lot in store in Viduthalai Part 2. “There’s a lot of action and entertainment for sure. There are a lot of hard-hitting sequences too.”
Chetan in a still from ‘Viduthalai Part 1’ | Photo Credit: @SonyMusicSouth/YouTube
Very few actors have transcended successfully from the television world to the big screen; Chetan says that trying to be active in both industries is like riding two horses at the same time. “I had to intentionally quit the television industry to concentrate on movies. I did do a few films while I was a part of serials too but about 12 years ago, I decided to go ahead with films alone. They say TV actors rarely get a break in cinema but a good actor is a good actor irrespective of the medium.” His TV outings, in serials like Marma Desam and Metti Oli, are much-loved, with some even re-discovering them recently. “I heard that the 90s kids who grew up watching these are rewatching them for nostalgia’s sake. Marma Desam is a very well-made series and Naga (the show’s director) was way ahead of his times. I didn’t know that those born after the series was out are watching it now. In fact, my daughter has caught the series a few times now as she got hooked on the story.”
For the unversed, Chetan began his career as an Assistant Director. “I started with Kannada cinema and assisted filmmakers like Dwarakish who did Naan Adimai Illai in Tamil. I also worked with other directors in films and serials, so the natural progression is to direct my own film. I have some scripts and ideas that have to be developed. I’ve put them on the backburner to concentrate on my acting assignments but the idea to direct a film is very much there.”
