The air was a bit cold in his guest room. Despite being a big star in the Tamil industry, Karthi has a certain amiability that makes the atmosphere warm. Just like his superstar brother Suriya. The actor was in Kochi for the promotion of his dark fantasy thriller Kashmora directed by Gokul. In the film, he has played a triple role. “It’s not as big as Baahubali, but you can compare it with Magadheera. It is a fantasy multi-genre film that doesn’t have a love angle but there is humour.
Only 30 minutes of the movie is periodical. When Gokul read the script to me, I found it extremely interesting but was unsure of the first role. When Gokul enacted a couple of scenes, I thought I couldn’t act like him, but later he came back with the second role for the movie, which is ‘Rajnayak’, a warlord who lived 500 years ago, I was impressed. The third one is the suspense After Siruthai, I found both these characters very exciting. The film took two years for completion, from planning to execution. Even though the trailer looks gory, it is a fun film with a lot of comedy and that’s the surprise,” says Karthi.
The last time we saw the actor in an extreme brash look was Paruthiveeran. Speaking of the preparation and challenges he had taken for this movie, “Rajnayak was the toughest part, especially to be convincing as a guy who is a warlord from 500 years ago. I was particular I didn’t want to look like myself so we came up completely different design—bald head, bearded with a tattoo on face. It took about two months to finalise the look.
When I came for the shoot, the toughest part was not to imitate Sivaji sir. For any period film, it is his strong histrionics that is expected from the actor. To avoid that, we had a one day rehearsal of how the character is going to be. Then, I had to learn horse riding which seems rather easier on the outside but inside, it was tough because of fire and a screaming crowd. It wasn’t just about riding the horse and getting off, I also had to do stunts. Then riding the four-horse chariot for the movie was really tough as the scene had to be shot in high speed and I had a hard time to controlling the chariot and act in between,” explains Karthi.
Including his family, nobody knew about his look in the movie. “Everybody was wondering why I was wearing a cap all the time, even anna was shocked when he saw my look in the posters and trailer,” says Karthi. The actor is a huge fan of Malayalam movies. “Nobody can write stories like Malayalam writers. We get beautiful stories from Kerala and there are such good actors here, so I really doubt if they want me,” laughs Karthi who wouldn’t mind acting in Malayalam movies if the script is good.
“I am huge fan of Mohanlal sir and I can watch some of Mammooty sir’s movies over and over again.” “If I get a good script, I am ready to give it a try. But I don’t know Malayalam but I am very interested to learn it. Infact, Alphonse Puthren used to see me before Siruthey happened but I couldn’t commit to his projects as I was really busy with some other projects. I have seen his Neram and Premam and I find them really amazing,” says Karthi. The actor says, he loves Kerala for its nature, especially Athirampalli and Vagamon, “ And one of my favourite dish is Kappa and fish curry. While shooting at Athirampalli, we used to go to small villages to search for food there,” shares Karthi. The actor has recently committed to director Mani Ratnam’s next project Kaatru Veliyidai.
