Silambarasan TR

In a interview to Sreedhar Pillai of Times New Network, Our Thalaivan YSs Silambarasan opened up on few questions.

Simbu is suddenly the most-wanted actor in Kollywood. His Gautham Menon film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (VTV) released on Friday and has taken an awesome opening worldwide. With the movie, the actor has made a total transition from a finger-wagging, punch-line spewing mass hero to a class act. Today, everybody wants to work with him and girls who earlier found him a little crass, now say he is the hottest poster boy in the industry. Simbu opens up about his new-found star status and a lot more in an exclusive to CT.

• What does VTV mean to you? 
It has given me a new image, thanks to that magician of movies, Gautham Vasudev Menon. It’s an honest, straight-from-theheart movie; a young man’s account of his first love. The film has taken me to the next level, and has given me an elite audience.

• With your makeover in VTV, you have turned from a mass hero catering to B & C centers to a class multiplex hero.
I saw VTV alone for the first time at a preview theatre a week before its release. I watched it purely as a Gautham Menon fan. It hit me in the same way that my character in the film Karthik explains how he got hit by love at first sight, as he says, ‘Ennai Adichadhu Andha Kadhal (that love hit me).’

• Your on-screen chemistry with Trisha is crackling. Are you in love with her? 
The chemistry worked big time because we have known each other for a very long time and she is a good friend. But I am still single and ready to mingle. (Laughs)

• Women are going weak in the knees over your character in the film. Honestly, VTV has given me a new image among girls. A girl from Singapore wrote to me on my social networking page that she was so moved by my performance that she wants to marry her ex-lover whom she ditched some months back!

• What are your impressions on working with a class director like Gautham Menon?
GM, as I call him, is the most phenomenal talent in Kollywood. The first time he narrated the story to me, I was bowled over by his love for filmmaking. He never thrusts anything on his actors. He gives respect to his artistes and receives the same. The kind of exposure he has to life, music, performances and nuances is awesome.
Right from the day I saw Minnale (firstday, first-show on my birthday, February 3) as a 16-year-old who bunked school to watch it, I have been hooked to his films. Ten years later, I watched VTV in the same theatre. It made me nostalgic.

• Some say that you are making a mistake by tinkering with your mass image by doing films like VTV.
My fans love me in VTV and the feedback I’m getting is very positive. They feel I’ve done something different and made them proud. I want to break the formula. In future, I will do films that I want to and try to balance between mass and class.

• Are you doing your next film with Mani Ratnam? 
No comments. But, who would not like to do a film with Mani sir?