Two at a time

Aayirathil Iruvar features Vinay Rai in a dual role. Will it prove to be that elusive hit?

February 07, 2015 04:18 pm | Updated 04:18 pm IST

Vinay Rai

Vinay Rai

Vinay is quite excited about teaming up with director Saran again for Aayirathil Iruvar . Their previous collaboration, Modhi Vilayadu , didn’t keep the cash registers ringing, but the actor is unfazed. He says he has identified the reason for its failure. “I guess we focussed more on the look and style than on the story.” Though it has been more than seven years since his debut ( Unnale Unnale ), Vinay hasn’t yet been able to give other solo heroes a run for their money. He believes Aayirathil Iruvar , starring him in a dual role for the first time, would change it all.

Vinay surprises by revealing that he agreed to this film without even reading the script. “There is a handful of directors I blindly trust. Saran, Sundar C., for instance, and of course, Jeeva sir ( Unnale Unnale ) if he were alive…” In any case, as he says, an actor could read the entire script in advance, but who can guarantee that the final film will remain true to the written word? “I’ve done many projects where the end product was, to put it mildly, quite different from the original script.”

The actor finds parallels between his film journey and his rugby days. “Though the Bangalore rugby team I was part of had several great players, it took us seven years to win the All India Rugby Tournament.” He wonders if his film career will follow a similar path. For an actor once touted to be the ‘next Madhavan’ (for his chocolate boy looks), he has surprisingly stayed away from doing too many love stories. “I didn’t want to be stereotyped. That’s why I did a film like Jayam Kondaan . More recently, remember Aranmanai ? I chose the horror film even though an actress of the film asked me, ‘ Aranmanai is a female-oriented film. Why are you doing it?’ I told her I was keen to work in a new genre.”

Aayirathil Iruvar is about two people (both played by Vinay) — one from Hyderabad, and the other from Tirunelveli. To suit the latter role, Vinay often woke up early and walked around in Tirunelveli to understand local customs and behaviour. “We did a lot of, what we call, guerrilla shooting. As I walked on the road, the camera would start rolling. We did a lot of that in Thailand too, where we shot three songs.” He laughs as he recalls shooting a sequence when he, in character, approached an unwitting, bemused English couple and began interacting with them. “It was a lot of harmless fun.”

Interestingly, the film will not have him dubbing for himself, as he isn’t confident of speaking the Tirunelveli accent convincingly. It’s not an easy decision for Vinay, as “miming to somebody’s words is dissatisfying for an actor”. However, the day he dubs for himself isn’t far away. “It is a personal goal and I’m taking it seriously.” Right now, there’s something he’s taking more seriously: giving a hit as a solo hero through Aayirathil Iruvar .

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