On Friday evening, a day after the release of Nawab (the Telugu dubbed version of Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam or CCV ), Arvind Swami surprised Hyderabad by making an impromptu visit to a few theatres, to the delight of the audience that wasn’t expecting this special guest.
When we sit down to talk the next morning, he’s visibly pleased that the film has opened to a warm response. The 90s heartthrob who debuted with Thalapathi and went on to have a sizeable female following after Roja and Bombay became nationwide hits, is today enacting the part of Varadan, the older son locking horns with his brothers, driven by ambition, power and greed. “It’s liberating to portray these dark roles,” he says, referring to Varadan and earlier, Siddharth Abhimanyu in Dhruva (remade from Thani Oruvan in Tamil).
“In CCV , each one is bad, worse than the other,” he quips and adds, “In Dhruva , a flashback explains why Siddharth is the way he is. When we watch Scarface or The Godfather, we look at the characters for what they are and the story through them. A lot of our movies portray idealistic heroes who make no mistakes; we don’t see such people in real life.”
Looking back, he says though he was predominantly considered the quintessential good looking hero in the 90s, he veered away through films like Devaraagam (Malayalam; 1996). He concedes that he found stardom stifling back then. He was a reluctant actor, and more reluctant to be a star. “I couldn’t deal with it and went away,” he reminisces.
An injury kept him out of action for a few years, until he returned with Kadal . “I was physically in pain, couldn’t move, and the recovery happened with some help from Ayurveda. Slowly I walked 10 minutes, then 20, and more. Three years later, I could run half marathons,” he says.
The second coming brought in newer set of films and roles that allowed him to go the extra mile. “I was older, exposed to life a lot more and could perceive situations differently,” says Arvind, who credits Mani Ratnam for bringing him back to cinema. “The physical pain disappeared, but I had to conquer the fear.”
The actor has also been writing scripts and hopes to direct a film soon. He’s happy the audience wants refreshing content in both Tamil and Telugu cinema. “I can’t watch formulaic films and hence, won’t write or make one such film,” he avers.
From Thalapathi to CCV , working with Mani Ratnam in a clutch of films, he says the director is still his guru, while there has always been room for arguments. “I’ve been arguing and fighting with him since Thalapathi ,” he laughs. “When he calls me for a film, he pitches the idea, the script is discussed and then he says ‘see if you like it and want to do it’.” There’s never a taken-for-granted attitude.
- In the course of conversation, Arvind Swami often pointed out how Mani Ratnam has never stayed in the ‘safe zone’ with his eye only on the box office. “Not many can use songs like him with such visual splendour. And yet, in this film, he has moved away from that mould in the way he has used songs. He’s constantly experimenting.”
Discussing Varadan, Arvind says Mani Ratnam used ‘the bull’ as a reference. “I thought it was interesting. So in an action scene where I’m held by people on either side, I kept moving forward like a bull.”
Each character has a backstory, though we get only glimpses of it on screen. The reason behind Varadan’s angst and frustration gets reflected in short bursts. “He carries a lot of baggage, you see him smiling maybe just twice in the film.”
Analysing the film, a few viewers have drawn parallels to Kalki’s eponymous Tamil work Ponniyin Selvan and likened Arvind Swamy’s character to Aditya Karikalan. The actor laughs it off with “not at all. I love Ponniyin Selvan but this isn’t it. It’s an original story and screenplay and there’s no question of parallels to Ponniyin Selvan .” And no, it has nothing do with a family in Tamil Nadu politics as well, he insists.
He’s now considering a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, and says he’s open to Telugu films but wants to learn the language: “I have a learning disability when it comes to languages, I envy actors like Prakash Raj and my kids who do it with such ease. I may not write poetry in Telugu but I need to get the nuances right.”
Up next is Karthick Naren’s Naragasooran, produced by Gautham Menon and co-starring Shriya Sharan and Sundeep Kishan. Arvind is all praise for Karthick’s screenplay structure and meticulous storyboarding and planning, “If you break down Pulp Fiction , it’s a simple story. But the screenplay structure keeps you guessing. Karthick made his first film in his early 20s ( Dhuruvangal 16 ; D-16 in Telugu) and startled me with his screenplay structure and unique voice.”
He recalls how Karthick’s impeccable planning came to the fore while shooting, “We were shooting at nights in Ooty and our shifts would begin at 6pm. We would expect the shoot to go on till 2am, but on many days we were done by 10.30pm because everything has been planned. In about 45 days we finished shooting.”
