A success brew?

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Anjala

As Anjala gears up for release, Vemal tells sudhir srinivasan that he’s quite desperate for a hit

Little did Vemal know while he was basking in the success of films like Pasanga, Kalavani andVaagai Sooda Vaa, that these very same films would result in him being stereotyped as the “actor who plays village roles”. He wants city-based roles, but the directors just won’t bite. “I realise I probably can’t play a suave, urban man, but I can definitely play a man from the slums,” he says, and assures me that he can talk Chennai Tamil really convincingly.

For now though, he’s still stuck to doing films set in villages. He has a whole set of them in different stages of production, including Mapla Singam, and Mannar Vagera, a film by director Boopathy Pandian. The one likely to release first, though, isAnjala. Even though he could probably sleepwalk through rural subjects, given his experience in doing them, he is particularly excited by Anjala, as it’s set against the backdrop of a tea shop. “Anjala Tea Stall is almost a character in the film, as it observes the happenings around.” Like the wall painting in Madras. “Everybody remembers a tea shop that they once frequented a lot. In many villages, the people are part of such a close-knit community that tea shop owners often allow their customers to run the shop in their absence. There are such scenes in this film too, that have the tea shop owner (Pasupathy) trusting me. What happens then?” asks Vemal, rhetorically.

Vemal agrees that box-office success has eluded him a bit in recent times. Surprisingly, he’s happy to admit that part of this failure is his own doing. “I guess I was in a hurry to choose films, only because they’d pay me well.” He says that after a while, it’s difficult to continue rejecting films only because the stories are bad. “I need to make money too,” he says with refreshing honesty. However, he has made up his mind that he won’t continue to make this mistake. “Even if I do just two films a year, I’m going to choose only those that excite me.” The other resolution—we may as well think of these as his New Year resolutions—he’s made is that he won’t do films only because the director is a friend. “I’ve done too many of those, and look forward to a successful run during the new year. Hopefully, Anjala will kickstart the good run.”