I thought I was not destined for cinema: Ashok Selvan

An excited Ashok Selvan talks about the multiple disappointments he had to face prior to Pizza 2.
I thought I was not destined for cinema: Ashok Selvan

Actor Ashok Selvan took two whole days to digest the fact that he was the hero of Pizza    2- The Villa, a CV Kumar and Studio Green production. The actor who got noticed in Soodhu Kavvum,  made it as hero after a long struggle. Speaking to City Express, he reveals the details of the journey.

“I was actually vying for a career as an animator while doing my Viscom course at Loyola College,” recalls Ashok. “But I realised I wasn’t cut out for a life behind a computer and that’s when the acting bug bit me,” he adds.

He won the best actor award for playing the lead in a short film, directed by Aswath Naryanana for the Naalai Iyakkunar show. Soon, on a friend’s suggestion, he auditioned for Prakash Raj’s Inidhu Inidhu and later for a tiny role in Pizza.

“But both times I got rejected!” he says with a laugh. He had got selected as the face of the younger Ajith in Billa 2’s title card.

“But the photo was so dark, I could hardly be seen!” he says. In a strange twist of fate, when he went to apply for an assistant director’s post with A R  Murugadoss, cameraman Ravi K Chandran selected him to act in 7 Aum Arivu instead!

“That was sheer luck! I was elated to shoot a friend’s role with Surya and Sruthi Hassan. However, when I went to the theatre with my friends, I discovered that all my scenes had been cut! I began to believe that I was not destined for cinema,” recalls Ashok.

But fate had other things in store. Soodhu Kavvum (SK) director Nalan selected him after an audition. He got noticed as Kesavan, an IT guy, in the hit Vijay Sethupathy starrer.

Ashok chuckles at the first reactions he got for the film, and says, “No one recognised me at  the theatre! That’s  because by the time SK released, I was shooting for Pizza 2 and had grown my hair, a beard, and had put on weight!”

But his work in SK had impressed producer C V Kumar enough to offer him the lead of Pizza 2. Ashok says, “I never expected to bag such a big project like Pizza 2 in my wildest dreams! The producers could have had any big stars.”

The happiest people are his parents, who being from Erode, are thrilled that their son has finally made a firm entry into KTown.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com