Despite positive reviews and the general appreciation his début Peechankai received, actor Karthik calls the film a bit of a painful experience. After co-producing the film, Peechankai couldn’t earn the money that was spent on it. “Our film was removed from theatres after just one week,” says Karthik about his début. “It wouldn’t have hurt us as much had our film been terrible, but everyone who watched it had liked it. Despite the quality of our film, we had to make way for Simbu’s AAA, which released the following week.”
Karthik feels a small film like this can survive only on positive word-of-mouth. If he’d been given a three-week theatrical run, he feels the fate of Peechankai would have been different. “Without stars, small films need time to bring audiences to theatres and for the word to spread.”
Not that he regrets making the film. His team managed to sell the satellite and digital rights to Zee Tamil. And of course, his role of ‘Smoothu’ in the film has given him a new lease of life as an actor. “All the four films I’m currently working on are a result of my role in Peechankai. It’s not that I come from a rich family that I can keep producing. We put everything into Peechankai and I’m glad it has helped me survive as an actor.”
The actor says he’s on the lookout for good character roles, not wanting to be restricted to hero characters alone. “I’m currently shooting in Chidambaram for a female-oriented subject in which I play akoothu dancer, who visits the heroine’s town for athiruvizha. It is set in the 80s and is quite different.”
Stating how he was affected by the 48-day strike, Karthik says one of his films had to be pushed to a future, unknown date. “I was supposed to be working on a thriller set in Chennai during that period. It has now been pushed indefinitely as I had to start shooting for the period film, which requires a clean-shaven look for me. I think the whole industry had to reschedule because of the strike. Some of my friends, who were in the process of directing their first films, are now unsure of their future because the strike scared their producers away. Obviously, such strikes affect smaller films the most.”
