The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : An ordinary man with extraordinary dreams

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

An ordinary man with extraordinary dreams

S.R. Ashok Kumar

My wish is to know my complete potential. That's why I keep pushing myself day after day.

Actor Madhavan

From his very first film "Alai Payuthe" to the latest movie "Priyasakhi," Madhavan has been known as a consistently hard worker.

The soft-natured actor has been given three different types of roles by his mentor Mani Ratnam. This week Madhavan sizes up his own career and his expectations.

My dreams are extraordinary, though I am an ordinary person. My wish is to know my complete potential. That's why I keep pushing myself day after day.

For a normal middleclass boy, who was brought up in a small town with very small beliefs and faiths, the list of dreams that have come true is quite spectacular.

So I want to know my potential to reach my dreams.

Nobody can claim to have given mega hits frequently. In my case they may not be mega hits but at the same time they are not colossal flops. I can claim to have given good enjoyable films.

"Priayasakhi" is a simple family story. No `tappanguthu' songs or forced dance numbers. It is a movie, which can be watched by the whole family.

I think it is a matter of great pride for me to be considered worthy of doing big budget commercial films in Tamil, Hindi, and English.

Apart from Rajnikant, Kamal Haasan, Revathy and Raguvaran who are in the same league, I was lucky to do solo lead in these language films very early in my life. I try to explore the kind of characters I need to do in all the three languages.

I am planning to do a film in Telugu this year. Actually I waited for many years to learn the language.

My Telugu fans have been pressing me to do an original Telugu movie. But I was not ready. Now I am in the process of learning it and will do a film in Telugu this year.

Life has been good towards me. I have hobbies like golf, aero modelling, computers, chatting with friends and writings scripts... and last but not the least trying to improve my films.

The name of the English film I am doing is "Nothing But Life." It is a simultaneous production in Malayalam named "Made in USA."

The same story with small changes. It is likely to be released at the end of the year worldwide.

Incidentally, I did an English film "Inferno" before entering the Tamil film industry.

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