‘If the content is good, people will watch it, and I will survive as an actor’

RMadhavan feels that the moviegoing audience, now, has the luxury to choose from a wide gamut of content across different platforms, which poses a stiff challenge before artists to choose their projects carefully.

The actor believes viewers are no longer at the mercy of the mainstream film industry for their entertainment, with proliferating platforms and genres at their disposal, which inevitably means good content.

“Audiences [truly] have the right to choose now. They are no longer dependent on just Bollywood. They can now choose from a slew of Hollywood films, because every other Hollywood film is releasing in India, which wasn’t the case about 10 years ago. This has opened up an entire field of opportunities for the audience to choose from, and they have that luxury to watch what they want to,” says the 47year-old.

And the actor, currently recovering from a shoulder injury, interprets this as a challenge for the industry and actors. “I personally take that as a challenge, and [would] want to be part of projects that the audience would want to watch. The survival technique for me now will be to be part of those projects that I think will be liked by the audiences. If the content is good, people will watch it, and I will survive as an actor,” he jokes.

Madhavan also made his web series debut with the crime thriller Breathe, also starring Amit Sadh, recently. Even though he had a great time shooting for it, the Vikram Vedha (2017) actor feels web series are tougher to shoot.

“There’s a big difference between them. I think shooting a web series is the toughest thing to do. Because each episode is 40 minutes long and there are 9 episodes, which translates into 360 minutes. That means it is equal to at least 2 films and now you can imagine that you are shooting for two films together. To keep a track of it all is really difficult. But I really enjoyed shooting for it, and I am really happy with the response so far,” he shares.

Audiences are no longer dependent on just Bollywood. [There is] an entire field of options for them to choose from... I take that as a challenge, and would want to be a part of projects the audience would like to watch. ACTOR