Juggling roles with ease

HUMBLE HERO

Apart from acting in movies, Sarath, who is also the President of South Indian Film Artistes Association, an icon player of ‘Chennai Rhinos’ and an MLA, handles all his duties with ease and even has big plans for each of his responsibilities in future. But how does he manage to juggle all of these? “I have always been able to manage time very well. Moreover, people have had faith in me to fulfill these roles and I can’t let them down.
Getting into politics is new for me and I look forward to returning to my constituency as I
want to thank the people whole-heartedly for electing me,” Sarath tells Metrolife.

The passion he has for cinema is evident and the actor gets excited like any newcomer when he starts talking about his films. One movie he is eagerly waiting for is the Kannada film, Sarathi, starring Darshan. “Though I have a small role in it, the film is special to me because my career as a journalist started off in Bangalore,” says Sarath, who still remembers cycling in the bylanes of Jayanagar and Malleswaram.

Currently, the actor is busy with Malayalam films. After giving impressive performances in Pazhassi Raja, ‘Christian Brothers’ and Oridathoru Postman, Sarath has signed on a new film called Metro. “After a long time, I will be seen as an action hero in this film. An actor my age doesn’t get to don an action hero’s role very often. So I wanted to get back in shape and do justice to the film,” he states.

Looking at the younger generation of actors, Sarath says that the new wave cinema has had a cultural explosion. The image and tag that every successful hero had back then is no longer of any importance to today’s actors, he says. “A lot has changed compared to our times. It was all about the image for us. If an actress slapped me on screen, I don’t think I would have allowed it back then because it wouldn’t go with the ‘image’. But today, it’s a different story altogether as there is no particular image attached to a hero,”
he explains. Having donned an array of characters, there is still one character that Sarath longs to bring on screen. “It has been my long time dream to tell the story of Subhash Chandra Bose. I want to show people that he was not a militant but a hero who contributed immensely in getting independence for our country. I am currently working with a team on the script of the film so let’s see when this dream will come true,” he signs off.