Set to make it big

An innocent professor who has a crush on his new colleague trying out different ways to impress her, including singing a Tamil song during the College Day celebration because his love interest is a Tamilian, was indeed a treat to watch in the 2015 blockbuster Premam. It cannot be denied that Vinay Forrt’s performance as Vimal aka Java sir was one of the major factors that contributed to the movie’s massive success. The actor, too, admits that since Premam, applauds and requests to enact the scenes from the movie have become a part of his life. However, the actor in Vinay Forrt is not happy with the appreciation.

According to the actor, his urge to do characters that will etch his name in the industry has finally been accomplished with Thamasha. Is that the reason why he took some time off the limelight? “Yes, it was a conscious decision. Once I signed Thamasha, I wanted to focus completely on that character. In other words, I only wanted to be the Malayalam professor of Thamasha till the shooting for the movie was over. And I would say that it has helped me to a great extent to concentrate completely on the movie and the character.”

Asserting that Thamasha will be the next giant leap in his career, a confident Vinay reveals that it’s the team effort of the makers of the movie and their approach that makes him say this. “I would say that the team behind Thamasha is the strongest pillar of the movie. It is the collaborative work of some brilliant talents like Chemban Vinod Jose, Lijo Jose Pellissery, Samir Thahir, Shyju Khalid and Ashraf Hamza that will make the movie stand out. All these names, especially Samir Thahir, who is also the cinematographer of the movie has been associated with projects that are big in terms of visual appeal and technology.

However, the treatment they have given to Thamasha clearly shows their vision about movie-making. Here, content is the hero. The professor’s reaction to various situations and the environment in which he lives have been captured at its best in the raw form. No technology has been used to give it an over-the- top feeling, nor have they chosen fancy locations. It shows a real man and his real life, but with a commercial approach.”

Vinay says that the movie is about a professor who teaches Malayalam in a Sanskrit University. Made in a romantic-comedy genre, Thamasha, he says, is a single-character driven script. Asked about the challenges he had to face in order to render a performance that will hold back the audience to their seats as the lead character of such a movie, Vinay says, “I would say the greatest challenge for me was to be extra careful about not bringing in even a tint of Vimal sir to this role. The genre is more or less the same and chances are more for repetition of mannerisms. I even took extreme care while delivering the dialogues. I wanted the tone also to be different so that none of the viewers will say that this actor has already done something similar. As an actor, I know very well that each character is a director’s vision and no two characters can be alike. However, the audience is judgmental and typecast an actor very easily.”

Commenting on his comic timing, Vinay says that he has not taken care of the timing as he understands a character’s thought process and just reacts to the situation in a particular shot. “I have never been a fan of made-up comedy. I cannot laugh at a comedy piece that is written to make you laugh. However, when a humorous person reacts to certain situations, comedy happens on its own. That is worth laughing because it’s all about reacting, and not acting,” he adds.

The actor adds that the movie is a complete entertainer and that for an actor like him, who has mostly been associated with realistic cinema for a long time, Thamasha will be a career-defining project. Vinay hopes that the movie will give confidence to filmmakers to approach him with new and unique scripts for commercial audiences that will in turn refine him as an actor and cement his position in Mollywood.