In a recent interview, actor Chiyaan Vikram has stated that he can not do many character roles because he is bound by the expectations of the audience. He went on to point out the many differences in Hindi and Tamil audience and how that dictates the script choices of actors.
Vikram says that when he was doing Bejoy Nambiar’s multi-lingual film ‘David’, he chose the role because he found his heart in it, otherwise he was actually offered the character of Neil Nitin Mukesh. But taking such a risk did not work out very well. His Tamil audiences were not very happy with him.
The actor elaborates that in the Hindi film industry there is much more space for experimentation and that is why films like ‘Laapata Ladies’ or ‘12th Fail’. Being such a big star comes with its own limitations. He says, “The problem is, we can’t do films like that. The whole market goes for a toss.”
The two industries work very differently and while there have been stars like Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth, or very recently Vijay Sethupathi who have worked in both industries with big roles. But it does not work that way for character roles. ‘You can’t do that, your market goes for a dip. I have done it before, where I started doing smaller films just for characters. Then that starts affecting the other films. It is a very tricky thing.” And while the Hindi audience is more accepting with their stars doing smaller roles, the Tamil audience has a long way to go before they can do it.
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