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Source: “Kalaymaamani Ajith”
January
2003
 The
name Ajith is a synonymous with the word
“confidence”. Without having any background, Ajith
entered cinema all by himself. His self-
confidence permitted him to climb the career
ladder and, today, Ajith has a place of his own in
cinema.
Everybody’s ambition is
to carve out a place in cinema after having
succeeded in other fields. But Ajith is an
exception.
Before becoming an actor,
Ajith was a champion in the field of motorbikes
races. Today, he has win renown in cinema and has
achieved success in it. However, he hasn’t
forgotten his passion for motorbikes races. Now,
he participates to car races again and has decided
to leave a bit cinema out so as to devote more
time to his passion. Ajith has, for the first
time, taken part to a race which recently took
place in Chennai and has won an award which is
dedicated to the best new participants.
The new goal of Ajith is
to participate to the car race which is about to
take place in Asia so as to bring honnour and fame
to India.
For that, he’s thinking
of participating to the different races of the
“Asia automobile race” which will take place in
several foreign countries. In total, there will be
14 races in 6 countries.
We met Ajith, who is
about to leave for Spain so as to have a training
there – a training which should permit him to win
the “Asian Cup”.
First, we asked him
questions in keeping with cinema:
Villain
is going well at the box-office
at the moment. In this film, you’ve got into the
part of a character that nobody suspected you’ll
play...
I did what I had to do in this
film. I did what the director asked me to do.
That’s all. Today, Villain is a success. I
have to forget Villain. That’s all.
Henceforward, I must concentrate on my next film.
It’s not me but the people who have to talk about
Villain. If I’m too enthusiastic about the
success of Villain, my attention won’t be
focused on my next film.
The duet KS
Ravikumar-Ajith has worked out well. Will this
continue in this way?
Sure. Even if I’ve already
worked with many directors, KS Ravikumar is the
one to have pleasantly suprised me. At the start,
I weren’t thinking of working with him. Because
he’s a straight forward person. According to some
people, he’s the kind to often get angry. And so
am I. I was afraid of having a unfortunate
misunderstanding with him if we worked togheter.
That’s why I hesitated to act, at first. Then SS
Chakravarthy, the producer of “Nic Arts”
encouraged me to do it, telling me that he would
take care of everything. So, I acted. Only later,
I understood that KS Ravikumar is a very friendly
person. He’s a very talented person who respects the opinions
given by his assistants! I’m proud to have acted
under his direction.
If I have this chance,
I’ll only act in one of his own films. Or in one
of own films produced by “Nic Arts”. That would be
my pride.
To the bitter end, you didn’t mention anything
about the mentally handicapped character you’ve
played in Villain ...
Why should I have said
something about this character? I’ve played
various characters previously, in Citizen
and in Red. These films had been given a
lot of publicity, mentioning that “Ajith is
playing in such and such way”. It created a lot of
expectations among people. But the flms weren’t
equal to their expectations. The films didn’t meet
with the success we expected they would have. From
that time, I’ve taken a decision: from now on,
there’s no question of me giving any detail about
the characters I’m going to play in my films.
That’s why I didn’t mention the mentally
handicapped character of Villain. It’s
thrilling only if the suspense is there.
In some of your films, you’re
called “talavaa” (“ boss”) or “talay”. Are you
thinking of entering politics?
Politics? Me? (He
laughts). Once more, I repeat that I’m not
interested in politics. I may have said some
dialogues in some of my films. But it was only
with the aim of making people happy. Otherwise, I
have nothing to do with politics.
I respect politicians.
There are maybe a lot of people who, by seeing the
example set
“Kalaygnar” and by other
politicians, would like to follow in their
footsteps in life. But politicians are the only
ones to know how much they had to sacrifie to
manage to get the position which are theirs today.
So, politics aren’t a game, it’s serious. People
won’t be taken in all those declarations like “
I’m the leader” and by all those build-ups.
Bacause today, people know. They know that there
are such and such person in politics, such and
such person in cinema and such and such person in
cricket. We are the ones to get it all mixed up by
not understanding it.
If I have said some
dialogues which had something to do with politics
in some of my films, it was as the actor
Ajithkumar and not because I have the intention of
entering politics.
I admit one thing: one
year ago, I was trapped by a band of jalras.
I understood it only after some time. I didn’t
knew how to manage to get out of this situation.
I am the only one to know
all the difficulties I had succeeding in it,
during a whole year. I’m not the only one to have
experienced it. These jalras are around all
the actors. As soon as two films are hits, they
stick to us like glue. They flatter us by saying
incessantly things like “You’re the boss, you’re
great” and they make us fall into their traps. In
several times, I’ve lost some of my friends
because of the jalras. This is the truth.
Other actors mustn’t have to suffer from this
situation. I pray for it. Only a few months have
passed since I got rid of these jalras.
Now, I don’t accept them around me.
I wish to be everybody’s
man in politics. And so am I. If you take the
example of my wedding, politicians like “
Kalaygnar” came to it. Why did they come? In my
opinion... My wife has been acting since she was a
child. So, they maybe came because they regard
Shalini as a child belonging to their family. Why
did they come? They came because they knew that I
don’t have no particular preference in politics.
When jalras were
around me, they tried to press me to enter
politics, with the hope of winning renown in
politics thanks to me. I almost fell into this
trap. I escaped from it at the last minute. The
jalras fool all the actors so as to get what
they want. Among us, among the
actors, there’s a good
competition, a healthy competition. We get along
well. But it’s because of the jalras that
the missensions begin. They report some presumed
things I would have said to such-and-such actor
and things that such-and-such actor would have
said to me. They succeed in “letting a fire”
 among
us and, then, they vanish. As far as I know, all
the actors are kind. They have a family and some
of them are married and have children. Each of
them do their job to the best of their capacities.
But some jalras fool them and act out on
self-interest because they want to become
counsellor or something. By putting our trust in
those jalras, we’re trapped. Now, there’s
no jalras. I can do films without being
bothered. I can also think a lot.
You’ve acted in a different
way, so far. But now you’re starting to act in
films which have 4 fights and 5 songs...
What can I do? We have to give
to people the kind of things they like.
Mugavari is a film that I like a lot. I took a
lot of pleasure in doing this film. What happened?
It was a flop. So, when the directors determine
the scenes in which I have to act and tell me that
it’s in this kind of scenes that fans expect me to
act, I can’t oppose to it... First, I’m an actor.
It’s my duty to make fans happy.
As an actor, you earn billions.
You have millions of fans. Do you really need to
go into car racing?
Everybody knows that before becoming an actor ,
I’ve participated to many races. It’s not new. ..
My life career has changed in the past 10 years,
I’ve been through many ordeals after having
entered cinema and today, I’m recognized as an
actor. Today, I have a lot of responsibilities. I
can’t act in 5 or 6 films like I used to do in
96-97. Today, there are a lot of expectations. So,
it’s better for me to choose good scripts and to
act in good films so as to come up to these
expectations. It doesn’t concern only me but all
the actors. That’s why I’ve decided to act in only
2 films per year from now on. There will be a film
which will be released on the 1st of
May, on my birthday and another film which will
be released on Diwali. It will be like that from
now on.
It will take 3 months to finish a film. In total,
il will take 6 months to finish 2 films. It might
take 7 months. So, I will spend 200 days
acting in a year. It will take 50 days to hear the
scripts. Suppose I’ll take some days to travel
with my family. In the end, I have 70 or 75 days.
It’s my life ambition to participate to races. For
as long as I can remember, I’ve always wished to
drive cars and motorbikes. It’s still my whish.
It’s a dream. But after having become an actor, I
couldn’t fulfill this dream. During the past 10
years, every night I slept, I did it with a
certain pain in my heart because I was unable to
fulfill my dream: to carve out a place in the
field of car racing. India has achieved a lot in
this field since the past 2 years. Indian drivers
are famous at an international level. I’ve thought
about it and I have taken a decision. I’ve said
to myself that now that I’ve made a name for me in
the Tamil cinema, I wanted to be famous at the
international level. Moreover, I want to achieve
in sport. I can’t say if I’ll come first or
second... I’ll try, that’s all.
I participated to the race which took place in
Chennai. Twenty-three persons took part to this
race, in total. I won the “Best Novels Cup”, which
is given to those who, among the newparticipants, finish the race among the best
times. For me, this cup is like a tonic. It’s
just like the encouragements that you get when one
of your films is a success.
Translated by Kavitha
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