Tamil actor Suriya says his Bollywood debut ‘Raktha Charitra’ was not a planned launch.
“It was a script that Ram Gopal Varma had and was a unique one. I wanted to work with him for a long time and things just fell in place,” Suriya said..
Suriya said it was the first time he worked simultaneously in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil versions for the movie, a high intense revenge drama directed by Ram Gopal Varma.
The second part of the movie releases on December 3.
“In the first part, my character was the hunted. The second one is about a man wanting to wreak vengeance for the loss of his loved ones. I’m an engineer who wants to settle down in a job, when life takes an unexpected turn,” he said and denied that the film has gone overboard with violence.
The 35-year-old actor said it was a huge challenge to do three versions simultaneously. “Doing the first scene was difficult but repeating the same in other two languages was like doing a retake,” Suriya said.
He said he would do Tamil first and use the same emotions for other two versions. “The ‘first AD system’ that RGV adopts helps save time. The assistant directors are given a clear brief of the scenes, everything is ready well ahead, so there’s clarity on the sets,” Suriya said.
Even though his recent films have been highly successful at the box office, Suriya says the initial five years of his career were full of struggles. His major break came in 2002 with ‘Nandha’, directed by Baala. Playing the role of an ex-convict who is very attached to his mother, he received a Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor.
Suriya said he owes his success as an actor to ’Nandha’ “It was the role of a juvenile prisoner. There was hardly one page of dialogue for me. I had to play with my eyes to emote. I was noticed as an actor with this movie,” he recalls.
“In the initial five years, I was not the chooser. I had to take up all opportunities that came my way to get a hold in the industry. I had to work for survival,” he said.
Suriya is currently working on ‘7aam Arivu’ with his director A. R. Murugadoss, the man who gave the actor’s super-hit “Ghajini”. He plays a physically-challenged circus artiste in the film.
“Our biggest challenge is to overpower Ghajini,” he said adding that the film is slated for release in mid-2011.
Even though he is the son of actor Sivakumar, Suriya worked in a garment export factory for two years before being launched in movies in 1997 by director Vasanth in ‘Nerrukku Ner’, a film produced by Mani Ratnam.
The actor feels the aesthetics and sensibilities of cinema in South and Mumbai are different. “In Mumbai, it is urban while in Tamil it is more middle class. Besides, cinema tickets in Mumbai and up north are steep as compared to Tamil Nadu,” Suriya said adding that Tamil film industry was more conservative than Bollywood.
The actor said that Mumbai was not new to him as his wife Jyothika is from Bandra.
He said he was open to good offers from Bollywood but his Tamil film commitments were a priority for him.
