“The 10-day stint with Mani Ratnam Sir helped me unlearn what I have learnt so far, something no cinema workshop could have ever taught me. To top it all, I got a call from the director himself to say that my character had shaped up well and to his satisfaction in Kaatru Veliyidai. What else can I ask for?” asks RJ Balaji.
He gently requests me not to refer to him as ‘RJ-turned-actor’. “Regardless of my strides in cinema, my journey as a radio jockey, which started a decade ago, will continue. I would love to continue straddling both careers in the future.”
Referring to the teaser of
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“It will be a typical Rajesh rom-com entertainer. The big difference, of course, is that Santhanam is absent. As his replacement, there is a lot of pressure on me. But I draw comfort from the fact that the director trusts me to be an able replacement. I guess he must have been something in me.”
On working with G. V. Prakash for the first time, Balaji says he’s been great friends with Prakash for a while now. While acting wasn’t quite an issue, the problem for Balaji was to match up to G. V. Prakash’s dancing. “It’s a road film in which weird things start happening. It will be high on entertainment.”
Balaji is also playing the friend of Mahesh Babu, in his upcoming bilingual.
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“It is a film by A. R. Murugadoss, where I will be seen only in the Tamil version. Much like the impact of my character in Naanum Rowdy Dhaan , I expect that this film will have a similar result. My stars must be aligned perfectly for me to get films with Mani Ratnam and A. R. Murugadoss.”
Is he comfortable playing the protagonist’s friend?
“I think the trend is changing in recent times. It’s no more a case of my just being around the hero in pointless scenes. Supporting characters today get to be part of the whole journey. Sometimes, we get to be part of important songs too.”
Balaji was also recently seen in Devi , where he had a relatively larger role to play in the company of Prabhu Deva. Making matters special for him was that the film was a trilingual.
“When you are part of such a big-budget film, the confidence level really rises. There was a project from Vijay Milton which I refused six months ago for lack of confidence in me rather than the script. Now, I’d take that project in a jiffy. That should tell you how confident I feel now, and how fortunate I have been to work with some established names.”
Balaji is doing two other films. He plays an engineer friend of Gautham Karthik in Ivan Thanthiran, and has a strong role in Kee starring Jiiva.
Before that, Kavalai Vendam should hit the screens. No prizes for guessing that he plays the friend of Jiiva, but in the film, he also gets paired with a supporting actress.
“I won’t tell you if it is Sunaina or Shruthi Ramakrishnan. You have to see it for yourself,” Balaji laughs.