“I was shocked when I first read the script of Vellai Pookal ,” Vivekh exclaims, “I promise on my dead grandmother.”
At his Saligramam office, filled with medals and statuettes that he has been awarded in cinema award functions, Vivekh looks remarkably similar to how he looked a few decades ago, at the peak of his career. This Friday is important for him — he’s awaiting the release of Vellai Pookal , a film that’s special because not only will it feature him as a cop, but also feature him in a serious role. “The writing of the lead character, a cop, kept giving me visuals of a strong six-footer, someone like Sathyaraj or Napolean. There was no way I could play this.”
But director Vivek Elangovan, the man from Seattle who sent the script, insisted that the comedian take a look. “I kept complaining about things, but he kept convincing me,” he says, “I gradually understood that they were serious about casting me.”
The protagonist, Rudhran IPS, is a retired cop whose police instincts refuse to die down. He travels to the US, where he gets involved in solving a case. “Rudhran has a unique mental technique through which he can actually envision what happened at a crime scene,” he says. This isn’t something radically new in Kollywood, thanks to the spate of cop films, but it was something that Vivekh never imagined doing. “I didn’t know if I could play Rudhran,” he recalls.
So, the comedian took the bound script to Kannappan IPS, a sought-after police officer in the State who has a similar style of cracking cases. His nod gave Vivekh the confidence he was looking for. “I also realised that many things were happening in Kollywood — like heroes playing villain roles and comedians becoming heroes. Today’s audiences are more interested in performances. They aren’t going to ask: ‘How can Vivek do this?’ They are going to ask: ‘Was I engaged for those two hours?’”
Best of worlds
Vivekh’s golden phase in Tamil cinema was in the early 2000s. He did more than 25 films a year then, with leading heroes like Vijay, Ajith and Vikram and debutants like Madhavan and Shaam. It was the years when he wrote humour tracks, which are today widely used to create memes. Among those are memorable comedy sequences that feature in films like Run , Saamy , Kushi and Dhool . “Writing a comedy track is an art. It isn’t as easy as people think. It can make or break a film.”
It’s a system he formed over the years, something that worked so well for him that filmmakers who had already completed their movies went to him just for that humour track. “ Run was one such. I didn’t know how to insert a track and kept asking the director how I could write a comic character when the hero (Madhavan) does not even meet him. It suddenly stuck me that that thread could be the knot — a friend coming in search of Madhavan.”
Vivekh is known as a comedian with a social point of view. “A comedian needs more than just a sense of humour. He needs to observe everything around him.” That would explain the ‘samiyaar’ character in Run , the contextual quip on Veerappan and vehicle number plates in Vikram’s Saamy .
Post his hit outings in Anniyan and Sivaji the actor decided to do more character-based roles. “After playing Rajinikanth’s uncle in Sivaji , I didn’t know who I could possibly be an on-screen friend to! I had already played Vijay’s and Ajith’s friend many times; I couldn’t possibly be around to play the friends of their sons too!”
Ironically, funny films are on the wane in Tamil cinema at a time when stand-up comedy is clicking big-time, especially among youngsters. “Where are the comedians in films now? Everyone has become a hero,” he says, “The screen time given for comedians has reduced. I think Tamil films will soon go the Hollywood way. There will be separate full-length humour-driven scripts, just like how thrillers and musicals are becoming successful genres.”
The future’s looking good. He’s teaming up with Vijay in director Atlee’s next (rumour has it that it is a sports-based film), and has an untitled film with Harish Kalyan on the cards. He adds, “I’ve also been approached for a web series, and if the content is good, I’ll take it up too.”
