‘AUDIENCES TODAY ARE UNFORGIVING’
R Madhavan talks about why it is important to do “ageappropriate” roles at this point in his career
I don’t go out of my way to dye my hair or do anything that will make me look younger. It is just my state of mind, I guess. R MADHAVAN, ACTOR
He recently underwent a shoulder surgery and will be out of action for at least another month. But that hasn’t deterred R Madhavan from celebrating the success of his recently released web-series, Breathe. In an interview, the actor talks about his career and being the best version of himself at 47. Your recently released webseries has done really well. Were you expecting this kind of a feedback? It was an experiment that I would say paid off very well. But having said that, I did not expect this sort of a reaction. After the finale, we realised that people had started comparing the series with some of the other series on the internet all over the web. Was the idea of working on the digital medium always on your mind? I had a plan of doing this almost three-four years ago because I was seeing all the top Hollywood actors doing it. It was making a huge dent on how cinema was being looked at. I knew that was the next logical step in my career. You were on a selfimposed sabbatical until 2015. Has this year started on a good note? The sabbatical helped me wrap my head around what the next generation of audience is keen to look at because they’re very discerning and unforgiving. You mess with them by enclosing them in a theatre for two hours and bore their wits out, they’re going to go after you and make memes, troll you and there is no recuperating from that. Careers have been lost because of that. For you, 40s seems to the new 30s as you seem to be at your fittest best… You should ask my ageing bones about my real age (laughs). I don’t go out of my way to dye my hair or do anything that will make me look younger. It is just my state of mind, I guess. I am not afraid of my grey hair. The fact that I am fearless about who I am is what appeals to the younger generation. Is it important to take up ageappropriate roles? For me, it has always been a priority. I joined the industry when I was 32, with a lover boy kind of a role and most people can’t afford to do that at even 28 now. You have to be ageappropriate because gone are the days when people believed you were young just because you wore flashy clothes.