HYDERABAD: When actor and filmmaker R Madhavan says, “I’ve always had my underwear on,” he is not fibbing. While the norm today is to get out of your comfort zone to be successful, the actor believes one doesn’t have to. He relives his memories and decodes the patterns in his life that led him to success while speaking to Indian School of Business students
Madhavan is an NCC cadet who received training with the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. An electronics engineer who got educated for a while in Canada knows how to fly an aeroplane, and a basketball player refused to put off his underwear. “When I was in Canada for a student exchange programme, I used to play basketball. The entire basketball team took a shower in a shared shower/locker room. All of them are naked. I was the only Indian, and the culture was imbibed in me. More than that, I just couldn’t do it and ended up being the weird one,” said R Madhavan. “That day, I learned that I must always listen to my instincts and not do anything that makes me uncomfortable,” he added.
He continued, “I was on a shoot for Mani Ratnam’s film in Switzerland. It was a dance scene, wearing a bright orange shirt and green pants. I was uncomfortable with it. But then a random spectator at the shoot, a local farmer, gave me the most disgusting look a man can give, looking at the attire and dance moves I despise. That day, I decided not to go ahead with anything, even as an actor, if it made me uncomfortable.”
Madhavan felt guilty that he was not using any of his life’s experience and was doing something otherwise that he was uncomfortable with and has taken roles that challenged him but have not pushed him off his comfort zone.
“In the film 3 Idiots, the director asked me to lose weight and clean shave to look the part of a college student. But when I went to IIT, I saw everyone was fatter than me and bearded. So I just got a clean shave but did not lose any weight, and I ended up looking younger than those students,” he said.
He suggested to students that, sometimes, they must look beyond the obvious. Sometimes you hold people in high esteem, but it’s not what you might always get. When there is subconscious restlessness, don’t take a decision. Wait till you know for sure.
Everyone was doing the same kinds of films for success, and replicating the success was falling flat. “Rate of success of the film is less than 7 per cent of 100 films; only seven get hit,” He said. He further stated that, Over The Top (OTT) platforms are an actual risk for any actor. “In OTT, we will be competing with the world,” he added.