An opportunity to work in a Dhanush starrer is not one to be missed and playing the antagonist gave me scope to perform, says newcomer Amitash who enters Tamil cinema with Velai Illa Pattadhaari.
“I am not the stereotypical villain,” he said.
In the story, he heads a construction company where Dhanush’s character is employed. “Our interests are at conflict with each other.”
Being pitted against Dhanush who has developed six pack abs for this film, one would expect thrilling action sequences, but this villain is different. He plays mind games with the hero and that’s where the tussle lies.
For one who has been on stage since his school days and is a trained actor from Anupam Kher’s School of Acting, Mumbai, playing this role was a different experience for Amitash, also a post-graduate in electronic media.
“I was an actor who believed strongly in a lot of preparation but on the sets of VIP, I was a little thrown off. Not by anything else, but by the fact that I had to be spontaneous,” Amitash said. “I had to unlearn a lot of what I had previously learnt.”
Pushing him out of his comfort zone and encouraging him were director Velraj and actor Dhanush. “It was intimidating working opposite Dhanush but he was very patient and put me at ease at every step. I also learnt that as an actor, one must not think too much over one’s performance. The sense of realism and a certain amount of polished rawness stimulated by spontaneity is something that makes a performance realistic and believable.”
