After the soaring success of Karthik Subbaraj’s Jigarthanda, Bobby Simha is in demand and rightly so. With his performances, he has proved that he can pull of any role that is offered to him. In Urumeen, his next film, he plays a dual-role for the first time.
The actor begins by talking about his love for acting since childhood.
“I have never had any second thoughts about my career and I’ve always wanted to become an actor. I’ve acted in school plays and there was nothing called stage fright in me then,” he says. But Simha, did experience fright when he started acting. “While working in a short film, I was too conscious about the cameras. A three-month acting course took all the fear out and I just wanted to act,” he says. With around 25 short films to his credits, Simha started portraying small roles. “My first break came in Kadhalil Sodhapuvadhu Eppadi, for which director Balaji Mohan approached me. He had written a rather substantial role for me which got narrowed down to a smaller scene. He was apologetic; I was happy I had got a start,” he smiles.
After that, Simha has gotten into the skin of many characters and has left a mark with each character he has played. “In that sense, I am thankful to all the directors Karthik (Subbaraj), Alphonse (Putharen) and Nalan (Kumarasamy), who have given me various roles to portray. They have helped me evolve as an actor,” he said.
‘Assault’ Sethu is one character that neither he nor the audience will ever forget. Talking about the National award and nonchalantly calling it ‘just an award’ but a prestigious one, Simha says, “The award was definitely not expected. I don’t think about awards while working in my films. For ten minutes after the call, I was speechless. And then, I want back to shooting.”
Like most of the actors these days, Simha also looks for a good script. “A film runs because of its script not despite it. When the script is good, the film is definitely a hit,” he says emphatically.
As an actor, if given an option, he would like to portray all of Rajinikanth’s characters on screen, as the man says he has been hugely inspired by the Superstar.
But he is aware that nobody can recreate those iconic characters Rajinikanth portrayed. “Besides that, I would love to go in for an out-and-out negative role. I think that will be fun,” he says with a smile. Simha trusts the director and the script completely and does not bother if the director is a debutant or and an experienced one. “Every movie I start shooting, I start as a new comer. You must trust the director and he will take care of the rest,” he says, adding he would love to work with all the seasoned directors.
“Each one of them is an institution and working with them will be like just going back to school and learning.”
Receiving the National Award does not seem to have brought pressure on Simha. “If I let success go to my head, I will approach all my films in a linear pattern. In order to work for the story, I need to set aside the prestigious award I received and work harder for another one. I need to justify the work that I am doing,” he says.
Apart from Urumeen, which is up for release, Simha is working on a series of movies including Ko 2, Paambu Sattai, Masala Padam, Iraivi, Metro, Veera, Vallavanukum Vallavan, Arjun Divya Matrum Karthik and the remake of the Malayalam hit Bangalore Days.