Ghajinikanth Special: Interview with Arya
Being in the industry for more than ten years, actor Arya has seen it all, right from starring in the biggest of films alongside the biggest stars, working with top directors, reign as a saleable star and the downfalls as well. In a freewheeling chat with Only Kollywood, the actor gives us insights into his career all the way to his upcoming release Ghajinikanth which is about to hit the screens on 3rd August!
We’ve seen many films with mental disorders in Tamil cinema. Ghajinikanth comes across as a film on memory loss, how can you explore this space as an actor?
Mind diversion is a very interesting concept. In this case, the protagonist’s attention totally deviates into another spot when he is distracted. For example, if I’m talking to you and I get a phone call, I will rush into that mindset and 
totally forget that I was talking to you in the first place. How this character deals with his love life, friends and family forms the story. Here, the situations themselves bring in the comic factor, I just had to react to the surroundings in the best possible manner.
What do you think is the most important to keep in mind while sketching a comic film?
I think the most important thing in a comedy movie is about how updated it is to the current situations flowing around. A director should be able to pick instant laughter material that the audience will connect to, and SPJ (referring to Santhosh P Jayakumar, the director of Ghajinikanth) has done that. If we bring about stuff that came up in the 90s, people will thrash it. Today’s generation is busy with trolls, memes and things like that. If comedy has to reach to the audience beyond all this, it is not an easy job.
Being a celeb who is always present on social media, what do you think about the negativity in the arena?
Negativity is common everywhere, it reaches places quicker than anything else. Avoiding it is the best foot forward. I feel bad when I see such replies or mentions on Twitter, from people who I don’t even know, but reacting to that is a waste of time. There’s no use in stressing over it.
Films like Naan Kadavul require a lot of preparation beforehand. But when one is asked to do a comedy film like Ghajinikanth, it is more of a mind game as the shoot schedules take place quickly. Do you need any kind of warm up to such a project?
Any film depends on the director. Our inputs might differ little by little, but the entire outcome arrives from the director, his vision and the ability to extract a solid performance from the actor. In SPJ’s case, he was well planned. He even shot for two films simultaneously, one in the day and one in the night.
After doing a film with Thala Ajith, you are now doing another huge multi-starrer where you will be sharing the screen space with Suriya and Mohanlal. Many young actors draw a line that they will stop doing multi-starrers after a point, from what angle do you look at this?
Suriya37 was a surprise call-up, not only for you but also for me. It’s a prestigious outing for me to be a part of such a big project, with names such as Suriya, Mohanlal and Boman Irani.
Every film is a multi-starrer. If I stand alone, no one is going to come and see me right? I’m not doing YouTube videos. If the script demands it, there’ll be space for another artist in it. I don’t mind if it’s going to be another actor. When a film comes up with two or three big stars, there’ll be a lot of value to the characters they carry.
What happened to Santhana Devan, the period film based on Jallikattu with director Ameer?
It will definitely happen. It’s a huge film to be made on a grand canvas with lots of work to be done before we go for the shoot. So it will take time.
Interviewed By: Siddarth Srinivas