Kavin on ‘Star,’ stardom and reaching for the stars

Kavin talks about his upcoming film ‘Star’ which, he believes, will prove his potential as an actor

Right now, Kavin seems to be the darling of Tamil social media; anything involving him is bound to go viral. Offline too, the producer of his upcoming film Star, at the film’s press meet, calls him the “next big thing in Tamil cinema”.

Mere minutes after such high praise, I am in his hotel room watching him order vegetable rolls before we sit down to talk about his film. “What’s with the veg rolls?” I ask. “Inniku kovil ku ponen (I had visited a temple earlier),” says a smiling Kavin, visibly unperturbed by the buzz he has garnered. “My target has always been the same and it’s something Nelson (director) anna taught me; to stay happy in our day-to-day lives. Everything else is just a matter of one Friday.”

The young actor continues, “If I spend 50 days on a film, the agenda is to keep myself peaceful during its making and the attachment for it is only till I’m done with the promotions. I feel that if we get detached from a film, its success or failure will affect us minimally. Success is paramount and that’s what we work towards from day one, but the end result is not in our hands. My biggest wish right now is for Star to do better than Dada.”

Excerpts from an interview:

Be it the money or anything else I’m getting, they are all byproducts of the work that I’m doing. My personal life is completely different from all of this. I hang out with 10 friends with whom I play PlayStation. The idea is to stay away from phones and other gadgets. At one point of time, I wondered if I could buy a new bike and didn’t even dare to imagine getting myself a car. But when it happens today, I realise it’s because of doing something right.

We watch films from other languages and series from all over the world. But what piques our interest is the content that is new. Dada, for example, would have been an ordinary love story if we had removed the subplot involving the child.. I’m in no hurry to attempt everything, but there should be variety. The idea is to make someone who visits my filmography after a few years feel ‘indha paiyan ellame try pannirukan’ (this guy has tried it all).

That pain really did come back; deep within, it will always be there. There’s a scene where my character goes ‘indha moonjiya neenga paapeeenga da’ (you will see this face again).Though we might not have said that to someone out loud, we definitely harbour such feelings within us. Such moments help me perform naturally while doing a similar scene.