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R. Madhavan is hardly a method actor. He doesn’t live as someone else life to experience it at the moment (in front of the camera), but live for that moment and live it well. He is that sort of actor.

He hardly changes his getup, rarely puts on facial hair, does not put on freak act of playing disabled for mercy, nor has he ever played a hunchback. The character he plays are usually mild mannered blokes who are driven to get out of their comfort zone, and face the

harsh reality and respond to it instinctively, at times, in a rather animal like fashion. We see him as an self-confident seemingly educated man broken down to pieces facing violence and learning what love means means in Anbe Sivam. A well meaning graduate looking for job had to wake up one day to find his entire family wiped out in act of violence, and has to take on a practical method of both avenging and teaching the enemy the evil of violence itself in Thambi.

Even when he is playing a romantic lead, you see him resorting to desparate measures that you had hardly expected from him in the first half an hour of runtime, like in Run for instance. And he made it believable. The moment he pulled the shutter down and faces the bad guys, with that crazy look in his eyes, you know, win or lose, he is not going to go to bed without some serious ass-whupping.

Madhavan is not a hypermart. He is a mom and pop store that has what a general consumer wants and not every product and label from the entire world. He has what is enough as an actor and knows enough what he has not to pull off ridiculous stunts that will have audiences in stitches for wrong reason.

And so, let us fans begin this new thread knowing well that there are more to come from this 40 year old young actor and hopefully with lot more surprises in his sleeve. You go dude!

Rakesh Kumar @ groucho070
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
15th June, 2010.