Tovino Thomas is no longer just a superstar in Malayalam cinema. He is now a household name all over India after the release of Minnal Murali – Netflix’s most widely watched Indian content ever across both films and web series. He plays the role of a new age journalist in his next movie Naradan. Puja Talwar sat down with him for a chat on his future plans. Here are the highlights of the interaction –
Experience of playing role of a journalist in Naradan
It was a challenging character. For me, I am not used to this kind of performances. But because of that, itself, I tried and that hurts a lot. I had to take a small training to improve my diction and body language. And I had to play left handed in this movie, I had to look different into different like, time zones of the movie, like when I’m struggling or partially successful. Journalist, I have to be this calm, frustrated, his frustration is seen on his face, but not he is not letting it out. But we can see the small frustration on his face. So I had to be really controlled in that particular area. And when I transformed into this media head, I’m this restless. Like egoistic, narcissistic, man, that transformation, playing two different kinds of different variations of the same character.
On playing all sorts of roles
To be jealous I might do I might do small roles, villain characters, I might do supporting characters. See, it’s all about my satisfaction when I’m working. Like, yes, I’m working to entertain people, when they are entertained by I’m getting this kind of satisfaction. But I don’t want to be stereotyped. I don’t want to be predictable. I don’t want to do that kind of therapist again. And again, I’ll get bored of it, then how can I expect people who watch my movies to be entertained, so I want to entertain them? For that I have to be unpredictable.
Watch the full interview here –
So I have tried this from the beginning of my career. When I even when I bought a break as a lead character, I kept on doing small characters, and William characters, whichever I thought are relevant in the movie, and whichever I thought whichever movies I thought was relevant, or were good. And still, I, I got a lot of the character offers again and again, so I didn’t lose anything by doing small characters or supporting characters. So I think my strategy is not very bad. And I used to have this unpredictability back when I was not very successful. But success, I think it’s a trap. Once you’re successful, you’re forced to do certain kinds of characters so that the producers who spend a lot of money on us when I’m, when I’m being the face of a cinema, I have a lot of responsibilities more than my satisfaction.
So at some point, the movies I did, made maybe have made me predictable, to an extent. But I wanted to break it. I took a break, I traveled, I spent a lot of time with my family, and then this lockdown came. And after lockdown, I decided, okay, let’s, why should I do movies, which I don’t want to do? I’m doing movies and characters, which I want to do. And I think that’s, that’s what success means. When you can when you are allowed to or when you can do whatever characters or whatever movies would you want them to do? I think that’s success. Not very a lot of money, not fame.
On his plans to enter Bollywood
There are amazing actors in Bollywood. And most of them are doing a great job. I don’t even like people comparing Bollywood and Hollywood to different industries. There are there will be regional differences. So definitely different kinds of movies happen in different parts of the world. So comparing one industry to another I feel comparison is bad.
And Bollywood? Yes, I loved watching Bollywood movies. But I don’t want to do a Bollywood movie unless the movie demands me and I’m totally convinced that I can excel in that character. If something utterly amazing, comes up, I’ll definitely take it up.