For fifty years In the movie. Before that, Art started as a dramatist. Vijayaraghavan is a person who understands life in relation to society, who speaks clearly about politics and can be decorated with many adjectives. N.N. Son of a father called Pillai. Vijayaraghavan has not even thought about what he would have become if he was not an actor. He says with a smile that he can only tell us how to conceive acting and that there is nothing to say in theory. Vijayaraghavan is opening his mind in Manorama Online’s ‘Memory Card’ program.
∙ How did Vijayaraghavan become an actor?
He was born into the theater world. Growing up watching my father write plays and essays. My father used to talk to me about writing at an early age. I was born to be an actor. I didn’t want to be in the movies. If he was not a film actor, he would have been a street artist. Adoration mixed with love for father. Whatever I talk about, my father will be there. There is not a single day in life when I do not talk or think about my father. Father is friend and teacher. I heard from my father more than what I read.
∙ Can you learn acting?
There is no definitive answer to what acting is. It can be said that it is the process of creating a character through acting. I have seen my father explaining the character. First read the play. Later the history of the character will be told. Then the actor will become conscious. Later, it is up to the actor to become that character by adding the people he remembers and has seen around him.
Father has seen this process done by many people. Actor Kottayam Vatsalan is five feet tall. He is an amazing actor. I have seen the process of his father making him a great actor. Was in our troupe for 13 years. Also Chita (father’s sister), Chita is the best actress I have seen in the world. Chita is the main reason I do character roles.
∙ Can acting be taught?
I can only tell you how I conceive acting. Apart from that, it cannot be said in theory that this is acting. I can’t say that I lived as that character, I don’t think such an event happened. We behave in such a way that the audience feels that we have become. We behave.
∙ Are there people around us who are influenced by the character they are acting in and are doing the same in their lives?
If you start living as another character, it is performative. Then it’s hard to be another character. Live as humans. I know what I am. There is no point in exaggerating. I have never met someone as academic as my father, and he is quick to answer any question. He is a man who has seen the world. He is a person who participated in the war. Hundreds of deaths and destruction have been seen. There have been successes and failures. He saved his friends during the freedom struggle with a gun that he did not have.
∙ Deshadanam movie and Kathakali
At that time, he was acting in the film Harbour. Jayaraj calls 5 days before the start of the film. The story is told over the phone. The character plays the role of a storyteller.
In a Sunday supplement I came across an article about Kathakali actor Kottaikkal Sivaraman’s 60th birthday. He sits like Mahatma Gandhi. Rudrasha gold necklace around the neck. Suddenly it struck me. Read the entire article. Later, he tried to understand unique talents like Kudamalur Karunakaran and Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair who were amazing in female roles. Krishnan Nair Asan has said that three hours are required for Kann Sadhaka alone. There is the exercise of putting butter on the eyes in the early morning. And technical acting involves moving the facial muscles in various ways. There is a pattern that occurs when all this is studied over time. That one rhythm. That was the first thing I understood to be the character in the migration.
∙ Devotion and hard work
My father was not a believer. But there is no preaching that God does not exist. My father used to say that ‘God is the wall against which cowards lean’. But I’m a coward. I need a small piece of wall to lean on. I don’t know what God or what power. Since childhood, no lamp is lit or Naam chanted at home. Amma used to go to temple. My mother was a strength for me. She was a supportive mother who said everything and said nothing. His father left the country at the age of 19 after telling his mother that he would marry her. Then father comes after 10 years. Mother’s sisters got married. They had children. Mother said no wedding and waited for father.
Meanwhile, a news spread that his father had died in the war. His mother died in 1992. It was a terrible shock for me. I felt a void somewhere. At that time I went to Mookambika with my close friend. When I went there, I felt like I got some kind of peace. I did not know what to pray or how to pray. But there seemed to be a power there. That is Bhakti for me.
∙ 100 year old character from Humans of Pookalam
Producer Vinod Shornoor and director Ganesh Raj narrated the story. The story of a 100-year-old grandfather and grandmother is not an ordinary story. It is a story of many eras. The story of a four generation family. Whenever I do any character, I have the look of that character in mind. I also tell the make-up guys what the character should look like. To play this character, some older people were tried in person. Looked at the small tremors in the fingers. It is a very likable character.
∙ Less movie watching
I am the person who has seen the least number of films working in Malayalam cinema. There was exaggeration in many of the roles in Malayalam cinema in the past. It was right in those days. Later, he liked some actors. There was a time when I felt admiration for them after going to the theater and watching the movie. It will influence our acting. Once during the rehearsal, my father said, ‘Don’t be anything like Kamal Haasan’. It was a great realization.
∙ No surprise award
Many people think that I got the award for migration. I don’t believe that if I get an award, I will become a great actor. Fifty years in acting. During that time, those around you like it and know it when you see it. That is happiness. I just want to be an actor.
∙ Politics
There used to be college politics. It was SFI then. Thiruvanjoor Radhakrishnan was a classmate. Radhakrishnan fell or something during that election. The next day, the photo of Radhakrishnan lying in the hospital was distributed. He won on a wave of sympathy. Today he is my friend.
English Summary: Exclusive Interview with Actor Vijayaraghavan, Memory Card