Jayam Ravi interview: Nothing can crumble the reputation I’ve made in 21 years

Jayam Ravi talks about his upcoming release ‘Brother’, returning to a family entertainer, processing professional losses and personal setbacks and his directorial debut

What delights an interviewer? An interviewee who gives solid answers with headline-worthy quotes for every question even when the interviewer does not resort to taking the conversation to clickbaity territory and Jayam Ravi is one such delight. Busy with promotional events for his upcoming film, Brother, helmed by Siva Manasula Sakthi-fame Rajesh, Ravi, on a phone call, talks about returning with a family drama after career-defining films within the genre such as M Kumaran Son of Mahalakshmi, Unakkum Enakkum and Santhosh Subramaniyam.

Ask him if he chose Brother because it was an interesting script that came his way or because he was seeking a break from thrillers and Ravi says, “I chose it since it’s a nice script that was offered to me but in the process of doing it, I felt the lack of doing family entertainers before. More than me, my fans were asking why I had moved away from doing films like Unakkum Enakkum and Santhosh Subramaniyam. I respected their wishes and was on the lookout for such scripts when Rajesh sir met me.”

After playing a prince (Ponniyin Selvan: I & II), a port worker (Agilan), a cop (Iraivan) and a prisoner (Siren) in the last few years, Ravi feels his character in Brother is something similar to his real-life persona. “For films like M Kumaran, I didn’t have to practice much to get into the skin of the character. But if the genre is different, I have to do something that can be called, in a crude way, homework (laughs). In Brother, I play a character who does what he loves and that makes him similar to who I am.”

“Revisiting my movies is one of my favourite activities,” says Ravi as the topic veers into his family dramas from the 2000s. “I used to go to theatres wearing a cap to watch the audience’s reaction and we can gauge which scenes work for them. I try to tap into those emotions with my upcoming films too. The boy-next-door persona was my calling card; that’s how people came to know me. So why not use it?”

Asked why we don’t get such classics anymore, Ravi opines, “I would love everybody to create such classics but there’s also the need to bring a sense of newness. There should be new collaborations or a new screenplay that stands out. Such classics will happen organically and it can’t be forced.”

Ravi acknowledges that Tamil cinema has become more genre-specific. “Trends change at least every five years in the industry. We should educate and update ourselves on what’s trending. The dialogues we spoke earlier might feel cliché today. After the advent of OTT platforms, our attention span has also dropped and the success of YouTube shorts and Instagram reels proves how people like to consume quick entertainment. Commercial films still exist, but we have to categorise what commerciality means now,” says the actor.

Ravi has worked with several debutant filmmakers as well as veterans like Mani Ratnam. Despite Brother marking Rajesh’s 10th feature outing, his last few releases have failed to recreate the success of his earlier films. “Legends are legends and nobody can change that,” says Ravi. “Sometimes, some makers feel if they repeat what worked for them before, it will be a hit once again. But that does not happen as the audiences feel they have seen similar and want something new. Mistakes happen and everyone, right from directors to actors, we all learn from it.”