The good news is, contrary to rumours, ‘Chiyan’ Vikram is not retiring yet.
Much to the relief of his fans, the buzz about Vikram seriously considering retirement from films to focus on his son Dhruv’s acting career proved to be a false alarm.
The 53-year old choosy, strong-as-a-horse action star had a rough patch of late with a couple of his much anticipated films—10 Endrathukulla, Sketch and Saamy 2—failed to cut the ice with his fans. However, last year’s slick thriller Kadaram Kondan, announced that he is back.
The life of this management dropout is both a psychology and a management case study at the same time. He hides many a struggle behind his charming smile.
He is a late bloomer. Kennedy, the son of a small-time actor and a sub-collector rechristened himself as Vikram 30 years ago with the determination to become a star. He had cinema in his blood. His father Vinod Raj was an actor. His uncle Thiagarajan is a renowned actor and producer and his cousin and Thiagarajan’s son Prashant was already a star at the age of 17 when he delivered the superhit Vaigasi Poranthachu (later remade in Hindi as I Love You) when Vikram was taking baby steps in the industry. Vikram’s first few appearances on the big screen were listless while Prashant’s career was growing by leaps and bounds with repeated superhits, including Balu Mahendra's Vanna Vanna Pookkal (1992), R. K. Selvamani's Chembaruthi (1992) and Mani Ratnam's AR Rahman musical Thiruda Thiruda (1993).
Vikram, to his credit, holds the record of sorts for having refused multiple offers from ace director Mani Ratnam: the first was surprisingly at a time he was struggling to get his foothold in the industry and again in 2000 when he was offered a supporting role (Alaipayuthe). In 1993, Mani had cast him as the hero of Bombay. After doing photoshoots with co-star Manisha Koirala, when Mani asked him to remove his beard for the character, Vikram refused it citing an already committed project for which he had to maintain his bearded look. The rest is history. Bombay launched Aravind Swamy as a star. After missing the bus with Bombay, Vikram had to work hard for almost 6 years to get his first commercial blockbuster, Bala’s Sethu (1999). Mani Ratnam succeeded in casting Vikram in the third attempt. In Raavanan, the new-age retelling of Ramayan, Vikram played the title character with much aplomb. The movie also launched him in Hindi.
At a time Tamil cinema shut the doors on Vikram in the 90s, Malayalam cinema kept him afloat. The supporting role in Joshy’s Dhruvam opened many a project in front of him. His efforts to be in touch with the Tamil filmdom continued in a rather unusual way—by accepting dubbing assignments for some projects such as Kadhalan, Amaravathi, and Kandukondein Kandukondein.
Sethu itself was a long struggle that almost made Vikram quit films. The film happened almost 7 years after his first lead role in cinematographer-director PC Sreeram’s Meera, which flopped. He was on the verge of taking up a full-time job away from films due to his financial struggle because the film, on which he had pinned all his hopes, was being delayed indefinitely. Director Bala and Vikram had to suffer for years to see the film released. Industry strikes, lack of distributor enthusiasm, a tragic climax and a new hero—all worked against the film. Sethu got him commercial success as well as critical acclaim—100 days of theatre run, state award and Filmfare award for his performance. His performance as Chiyan, which became his nickname in Tamil cinema later, missed the national award by one vote to Mohanlal’s Kunjukuttan of Vanaprastham. However, he won it three years later with another Bala film, Pithamagan, the role of an autistic social outcast living in a graveyard which you cannot imagine another leading actor doing.
To me, Sethu, Pithamagan, Anniyan, Daiva Thirumagal and Raavanan are five must-watch films from the Vikram filmography. Strangely enough, the common thread that connects most of these roles are some form of psychic disorder—Chiyan in Sethu suffers from amnesia and is in a catatonic state after a brutal attack, Chithan in Pithamagan is autistic, Ambi in Anniyan has multiple personality disorder and Krishna in Daiva Thirumagal is a man with developmental disability having the faculty of just a five-year old.
Vikram, who complains he has been ‘typecast’ in challenging roles, had offered an interesting explanation for why he picks these unusual characters. One of them being, performing on the big stage has caught on to him ever since he played a little black girl in a school play. And the other, he wants each character to wear a distinct look and style that anyone looking at a still should be able to readily tell which film or character it is. Being an ultimate showman himself, it’s hardly surprising that the challenges of giving life to unusual characters and situations excite him.
If you just want to see Vikram, the superstar, in lightning action and dialogues, try the entertainers Dhill, Dhool, Saamy, Gemini or the recent 10 Enrathukkulle.
Directors like Bala and Shankar couldn’t have imagined a Pithamagan, Anniyan or I, if they did not have the complete package called Vikram to support them. The man’s persistence to study and internalise the character is what makes these films a class apart. He had confessed that he drives the directors mad asking questions and offering suggestions because he would have imagined the characters in so many different ways. The mega multilingual project Raavanan was rejected by critics across the board, but not a single review failed to acknowledge the performance of one man who played two different characters in the Tamil and Hindi versions. The rustic Veeraiya in the Tamil version and the suave Dev Pratap Sharma in the Hindi version were simultaneously shot and dubbed, thanks to Vikram who has developed this strange penchant for rapid switches between characters. To those who watched Anniyan in a theatre, the madness in the climax was just so jaw dropping that you can’t stop thinking how this soft-spoken, smiling man pulled it off in the first place without losing it.
The soundtrack of 10 Enrathukkulle pays tributes to Kamal Haasan who is the master of makeovers in Indian cinema. Vikram, unlike Rajnikanth, Vijay and Ajith, belongs less to the ‘mass hero-MGR’ slot of Tamil cinema and more to the ‘performer-Sivaji Ganesan’ slot where he is in good company with Kamal.
His next releases are expected to be the AR Rahman musical Cobra and Gautam Menon’s long-awaited thriller Dhruva Natchathiram. Having signed Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan, Vikram has enough to keep himself busy for the next couple of years. If the much-hyped 300-crore project Karna too finally manage to kick off, a retirement seems to be far off. Chiyan fans have much to look forward to.
(Dress Circle is a weekly column on films. The author is a communication professional and film enthusiast. Read his past works here.)
