Actor Ashok Selvan, gets candid with The Pioneer speaking of his South Indian roots, some BTS from the shoots, and more.
Shikha Duggal
Tamil actor Ashok Selvan’s character in Por Thozil was very minimalistic and doesn’t try to walk you through everything under the sun like most films do. The control he had over his craft didn’t let it reduce to another template serial killer thriller. He, very gracefully, converted mundane police work to the status of a mega event!
In an exclusive conversation with The Pioneer, the Oh My Kadavule fame reports, “I was born in Erode but my parents hail from Chennimalai —there is not just one but a plethora of cultural beliefs in our Tamil Nadu. Coimbatore is full of historical significance. They admire me so much over there. When my parents moved to Chennai, they started a magazine of their own about export and import so they were journalists like you. I take pride in this because my dad had nothing to secure him financially, especially coming from a village. Our people are not that insane when it comes to movies but you can spot some insanity in the areas of Madhurai. My area focuses more on agriculture so they hardly get time to watch a full-blown experience of cinema.”
In spite of this, he as an actor is holding all this together and so fantastically. His film is as consistent as it’s making. The screenplay he’s a part of feels like it’s two steps ahead of you! The lead actor continued, “We hardly have vulnerable cops coming on-screen in Tamil movies so I stepped into one. Why is it always about Singhams and macho police officers? Why can’t they be a little dainty? They are always supposed to do action scenes but in the midst of that many filmmakers forget to show their weaknesses. My character in the film was a new experiment! I have only read about vulnerable cops in books but never seen them on-screen.”
So he was plausible as well as entertaining — “Change in shooting locations really helped me in my performance. We shot for thirty-six nights, which was a gruelling experience! I am not even allowed to complain about it because a senior actor like R.Sarathkumar was gruelling with me. There was an extremely old fort we shot at. The best part about the script was how we resolved the issues!”
Sharing his camaraderie with his co-star, he tells us, “The way he approaches his life would be inspirational to any actor. I was just observing him and I felt mentored by him automatically. Even on the sets he was multi-tasking! He’s almost touching seventy years now and for the last forty years, he’s only given to our Tamil cinema. That’s glorious! He has his own political party so the party members used to come to the sets, Sarathkumar sir used to take out time to listen to their queries too even if he was filming. That shows he’s not neglecting his party! He was changing outfits simultaneously for his political meetings and then shooting for the scenes. Then he also has his own production company, the calls were always ringing! I was amused to see his workout and diet regime.”
