Silambarasan TR

Controversy’s favourite child is enjoying his new role these days. His first on screen craze — fighting 10 goondas at the same time — has taken a backseat. His second love — delivering punch dialogue after dialogue — no longer holds the same fascination that it used to. Silambarasan aka Simbu has a new muse, and that’s love!

He longs to strum the guitar, sing love songs and go down on his knees for his ohso-pretty girl… all in his upcoming film Vinnaithaandi Varuvayaa (VTV). Call it the Gautham Menon effect! “I’m not planning to do too much of mass or commercial films in the next couple of years, and am planning to concentrate on love.

I guess people will like to watch me falling in love,” says the actor. He might have done a fullof-masala Kaalai and followed it with a commerciallyviable Silambattam, but currently, the actor is thoroughly enjoying a tug at his heartstrings.

According to him, VTV’s recent schedule at Malta, where the team picturised a couple of songs tuned by Oscar winner A R Rahman, will be a sure-shot winner with the audience. “Malta was such a superb place,” he recalls, “Except for the heat, everything about the shoot was perfect. We’ve explored a lot of virgin locations for the song sequences that have come out very well. I’m sure that Bollywood will hit Malta soon…”

He’ll be heading to New York early next month to finish the climax and remaining portions of VTV. “I still don’t know the climax of the film,” he reveals, “Let’s see what Gautham comes up with.”

Simbu’s co-star in the film is Trisha, an actress who has been linked with him in recent times. So, what does he have to say about it? “The press loves me so much that they couldn’t bear to see me single! So, they decided to link me up with Trisha. For the record, Trisha is a good friend and it was great working with her.”

Mood swings are an integral part of Simbu’s life and his eccentricities are just a part of that. “I’m a little weird,” he says with a straight face, “My mood swings depend on the script that I’m doing and where it’s taking my character. Sometimes, I love listening to hiphop songs and suddenly you’ll find me listening to slow love songs. And then, it’ll be dappankutu songs… it goes on like that, depending on what my character is doing in the movie I’m working on at that point of time.”
Post VTV, Simbu will be playing to his ‘loverboy’ image minus the shades of grey or innocence that he revealed in Manmadhan and Vallavan respectively. It’ll be Vaaliban next! “It will detail one episode in a youngster’s life. VTV will give me a new image and I’ll play it up in Vaaliban too,” he says.

But, one project that’s always on his mind is Manmadhan 2 (M2), a sequel to his superhit 2004-starrer Manmadhan. “There is so much negativity in our everyday life that we choose to ignore,” he says, adding, “In M2 I will show what Chennai is today when it comes to issues like love, sex and personal behaviour. My lead character will expose all the corruptness and the perverted nature that youngsters today have.”

TREASURE IN MALTA

Simbu is known for his eccentricities and here’s one of them. While shooting at Malta, the actor put in some money in a bottle and hid it near some rocks. Why’s that? “I might go there after many years with my kids,” he says, “And, I’ll tell them that I hid this bottle and ask them to take the money for themselves. Of course, assuming that it’s still there…”