More than a decade into showbiz, Jayasurya says he still gets an adrenaline fix each time he faces camera - the very reason he can easily lose himself to his characters. The actor who has four releases this month is definitely on a high, but seems unaffected by the buzz. “It’s all about being at the right place at the right time,” the actor says with a polite nod.
If Hotel California and Mumbai Police have already hit the screens, English and Thank You will be opening in cine-houses very soon. Though it has streaks of grey, his suave and stylish pimp in Hotel California has created quite a flutter with chic looks and deadpan humour. “Airport Jimmy in Hotel California is a demi-don who has his finger in every pie. He belongs to the dark underbelly, but there is a spunky spin to his character. He has played the deadliest of games, so there is an underlying calmness that marks his every move.”
He says the film was conceived as a ‘fun carnival’ and was not meant to be a message movie. “After films like Beautiful and Trivandrum Lodge what we wanted was an insane comedy. The sole intention of the film is to whip up an air of freewheeling hilarity. This is the kind of film that will fill the theatres with wolf whistles and guffaws, but the whole fun is over as the end credits roll. So the unbridled wackiness and the frenetic tempo were no mistakes,” he explains.
He says he doesn’t have any qualms being one among the spill of characters on a wide-angled canvas, let alone playing second fiddle to Prithviraj. When he adds he looks forward to intriguing roles, no matter how miniscule, that doesn’t sound like a well-rehearsed quip. “It was the film’s radical storyline that made me accept the assistant commissioner in Mumbai Police. I was bowled by the unconventional and experimental plot at the first narration itself. Aryan is a cop, but not by choice. So he always feels out of place among his aloof and tough peers until he meets the characters played by Prithvi and Rahman.”
Jaysurya says he wants to be more of a performer than a star and reel time is never a concern while zeroing in on a project. “I don’t want to be a routine hero monopolising all the scenes. If a character is integral to the plot and piques the actor in me, I am game for it,” he says. The actor, who has experimented with his looks for all his recent films, says he leaves no stone unturned when it comes to perfection. “I shed nearly ten kilos to look the 22-year-old in David and Goliath and then put all the weight back for the macho character in Hotel California.”
The actor is keeping his fingers crossed for English in which he plays a meek Kathakali artist. “Shyamaprasad is a director who has always topped my wishlist and Shankaran is one character I will always cherish. He is an illegal immigrant who lives in the perennial fear of police sirens. There is a wistful air that looms large over him as he desperately tries to block the sights and sounds of London. He feels like a fish out of water in the alien city and yearns for a sense of familiarity,” says the actor. Jayasurya is equally upbeat about Thank You, an emotional thriller in which he once again joins hands with V K Prakash. “The film has an exciting script and I play a nameless character for the first time.”
He agrees he has made big-time blunders in the past being part of the films that did absolutely nothing to the growth of his careergrpah. “Now I am not ready to encash my star value for films that will make me regret later. I have decided to to make amends and take up only exciting projects. Even if such projects bomb at the box office I will be less remorseful,” says the actor who reveals that he doesn’t have a long string of projects lined up.
“Of course it was the glam and glitter that dragged to this medium. But at a point in your career you start feeling a kind of fierce loyalty towards what you do. All I have committed as of now is a children’s film and after that there is nothing. If that means sitting at home jobless for a one whole year, I am prepared for it. I don’t want to be remembered as an actor of mediocre films,” he signs off.