Six months, just six months —– that was the period Bilas Nair set as the deadline for his dream to become a film actor. His family also agreed to support him to pursue a career in films, but with one condition — something should happen in the next six months. But then nothing happened in first five months and that worried Bilas. It was then that he got a call from award-winning director Jayaraj, who was then doing the pre-production of his magnum opus Veeram.
“From 2000 onwards, I was active in theatre, but my dream was to become a film actor. I am glad to have acted in two films The White Elephant (Hindi) and Sapth Swar (Bengali). After that, I did not act in any film as I became busy with theatre. Though I got a chance to face movie camera later, I denied those offers just because those roles were not up to the mark. But it was after I took a break from theatre as part of an Ayurvedic treatment, I again started dreaming to go back to films,” he says.
It was through actress T Parvathy that he acquainted with Jayaraj. “I knew Parvathy chechi from 2006 and she was aware about my struggles. One day she called me and said that she had talked to Jayaraj sir about me and he might call me. Later I met him when he came to Thiruvananthapuram. Though I went for a role, I had decided against doing a passing shot. But when I started talking with him, he said that he was planning to cast me for the role of Komappan. I sought the script before agreeing to do the role. He liked that attitude and gave me the script,” says Bilas about his entry to M’town.
Recollecting an incident after the premiere of the film, the actor says, “Jayaraj sir appreciated me saying that I have done a good job. He points out that even in the scenes in which had no dialogues, my eyes were very lively.”
It was post the production of Veeram that he got the call to Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s award-winning movie Sexy Durga. “Though I had met Sanal during an IFFK in which I worked with the hospitality team, that relation did not play any role in my entry to his film. It was after watching the short film Pu that he zeroed in on me to essay a key role in his movie. I am really happy that he cast me in one of the six lead roles in the movie,” says Bilas, who feels that film had an unconventional production procedure. “Even in theatre and my previous films, the complete production was happening based on a script. But it was for the first time I was working on a project without a script,” he signs off.
