It took Rishikanth 15 years to get a lead role: 'Because I am not from Chennai'

Dubai: Rishikanth took 15 years to get from online sketch comedy to leading a film, and he is clear-eyed about why it took that long and what the hard part actually is.

The actor, who came up through the YouTube group Temple Monkeys, made his debut as a lead in Raja Karuppasamy's Modha Rathiri. He is in front of a much larger audience this week, with the film arriving on Netflix and the trailer for his next project landing on the same day.

Not being from Chennai

Asked about how he got into Tamil cinema, he started from childhood and worked forwards.

"My outlook on what I watched on screen was that when I was little I believed cartoons were real and they were shot on location. Later, when I wanted to enter into cinema I learnt that there is a place called Chennai, where film shoots happen. Maybe, if I was from Chennai and I had more connects in this industry, I would have grown sooner. But because I am not from Chennai, it took me 15 years to grow properly," he said.

He does not present the wait as wasted time.

"But I would say, these 15 years were needed. Every year, when I wouldn't get an opportunity, I would concur that I wasn't ready yet, so I would analyse on how to get ready to grow."

The sustaining problem

The line he keeps coming back to is about longevity rather than access.

"Getting into cinema is easy, but sustaining here is difficult. If I choose this as my profession, this is my personal choice. But I shouldn't let my choice affect my family or any loved ones. So to choose this as a profession, I need to be here until I am old, and for that I should learn to sustain."

Modha Rathiri, now on Netflix

Raja Karuppasamy wrote and directed the film, his first feature, and Mythri Movie Makers produced it.

Rishikanth plays Maruthu opposite Anishma Anilkumar as Muthuselvi, two people who barely know each other and are pushed into marriage by family pressure and village custom. What happens around that wedding drives the rest of the film. Shelly Kishore, Chetan and Bagavathi Perumal also feature, with music by Bharath Sankar.

It opened in cinemas on 21 August and began streaming on Netflix on 18 September, available in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. Dhanush publicly praised the film during its theatrical run.

Dorothy arrives next week

His next release is the bigger platform.

Dorothy is written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj and opens in cinemas on 25 September. Rishikanth leads alongside Keerthy Suresh and Sananth.

The film had its world premiere in the Centrepiece section at the Toronto International Film Festival before the theatrical run. Subbaraj released the trailer on his Instagram on 18 September.

Set against caste, violence and prejudice, it follows a long friendship strained by a world split by hatred, and asks whether compassion holds up under that pressure.

Ilaiyaraaja composed the score. It is his 1,540th film.

The credits behind him

Before the lead role, Rishikanth built a run of supporting work that put him on large sets without putting him at the centre of them.

He appeared in Hero in 2018, then Indian 2 in 2024 and Coolie in 2025, along with the streaming series Mathagam. Temple Monkeys, where he started, was an online sketch outfit rather than a conventional route in, which is part of why the Chennai point matters to him.

He has several projects listed beyond Dorothy, including Indian 3.

Why he is surfacing now

The timing is doing a lot of work here. A first lead role reaching Netflix in five languages and a Karthik Subbaraj trailer both landing on 18 September means a performer who spent 15 years in the margins is now in two places at once.

By his own framing, that is the easy part.