For fifty years In the movie. Before that, Art started as a playwright. Vijayaraghavan is a person who understands life in relation to society, speaks clearly about politics and can be adorned with many adjectives. NN is the Son of a father named Pillai. Vijayaraghavan has not even thought about what would have become had he not been 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 opens his mind in Manorama Online’s ‘Memory Card’ programme.
∙ How did Vijayaraghavan become an actor?
He was born into the world of theatre. Growing up watching my father write plays and essays. My father used to talk to me about writing at a young age. I was born to be an actor. I didn’t want to be in the movies. If he wasn’t a film actor, he would have been a street artist. Worship mixed with love for father. Whatever I’m talking about, my dad will be there. There is not a single day in life when I do not talk or think about my father. A father is a friend and a teacher. I heard from my father more than what I read.
∙ Can you learn to act?
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 explain the character. Read the play first. Later the story of the character will be told. Then the actor will become aware. 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. He was in our company 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 conceived acting. Apart from that, it cannot be said in theory that this is action. I can’t say that I live as that character, I don’t think such an event happened. We behave in such a way that the audience feels that we have come. We behave.
∙ Are there people around us who are influenced by the character they act in and who do the same in their lives?
If you start living as another character, it’s performative. Then it’s hard to be another character. Live like 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 took part 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 he didn’t have.
∙ Deshadanam and Kathakali movie
At that time, he was acting in the movie Harbour. Jayaraj calls 5 days before the start of the film. The story is told over the phone. The character plays the role of 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 hit me. Read the whole article. Later, she tried to understand unique talents like Kudamalur Karunakaran and Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair who were amazing in female roles. Krishnan Nair Asan has said that only Kann Sadhaka needs three hours. Applying butter to the eyes is practiced early in the morning. And technical acting means moving the facial muscles in different ways. There is a pattern that occurs when all of this is studied over time. That same rhythm. That was the first thing I understood was 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 is or what power. Since childhood, there is no lamp lit or Naam chanted at home. Amma used to go to the temple. My mother was my strength. She was a supportive mother who said everything and said nothing. His father left the country aged 19 after telling his mother he would marry her. Then a father comes after 10 years. He married mother’s sisters. They had children. Mother said no marriage and wait for father.
Meanwhile, 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 was getting some kind of peace. I didn’t know what to pray or how to pray. But there seemed to be power there. That is Bhakti to 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 grandparent is not an ordinary story. It is a story of many periods. A family history of four generations. Whenever I make any character, I have the look of that character. I also tell the makeup guys how the character should look. To play this character, some older people were personally tried. He looked at the little tremors in the fingers. He is a very likeable 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 fine 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 film. 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 prize
A lot of people think I got the prize for migrating. 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’s 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 or something fell during that election. The next day, the photo of Radhakrishnan lying in the hospital was circulated. He won on a wave of sympathy. Today he is my friend.
English Summary: Exclusive Interview with Actor Vijayaraghavan, Memory Card
