"Actors Aren't Vocal In The Tamil Industry", Said "Gurkha" Fame Raj Bharath

Tamil film industry star actor Raj Bharath was last seen in the superhit film Gurkha. Before Gurkha, Raj Bharat's films were not doing well at the box office. Gurkha film came to Raj Bharath when he was looking to reinvent himself. In an interview, he said, “Now that my patience and hard work have paid off, I am hoping to choose scripts with more care”.

Raj Bharath is the son of Malliyam Rajagopal, a film director, and producer, who had been active in the 1970s. Raj Bharath briefly worked with Infosys. He handed out his portfolio to prominent directors, before gaining an opportunity to portray a small role in Sasi's Ainthu Ainthu Ainthu as an assistant to the villainous character portrayed by Sudesh Berry.

"It is monotonous when you take up films for various compulsions", Raj Bharath states. “It is depressing to see the kind of money being spent and the quality of output,” he adds. All changed with the Yogi Babu starrer Gurkha.

“Once you give a hit, you are in a stable place. Until then, you don’t know if you will have another film or not. I am looking to do films as the lead. I am already in a place where I can choose my work. As for Gurkha, I instinctively knew I should be choosing it,” Bharath notes.

When asked about the changes in the last 6 years of his career in the film industry, Raj said, “It is no longer about my performance. I need to pick a good script and make sure the film comes out well, gets promoted and released. Lots of tasks involved. Moreover, the story should be executed exactly as it was narrated,” laughs the actor.

For him, there is no dearth of talent to make “entertaining films”, but there is a lack of distribution support.

Raj Bharath has many stories to tell. “Apart from character roles, there were many more offers that came my way. But I was conscious that I don’t repeat the mistakes I did in my previous films. One of them wasn’t fully completed. But we went ahead with the release. In the other one, I was promised that I would be featured as a lead in posters, which never happened. Additionally, I have pending payments to receive that directors promised me. I felt cheap asking for it. The problem is actors aren’t vocal in Tamil cinema. If they speak out, they fear they would be shunned. So most of them sort out their differences behind the scenes,” he explained.

When asked about his acting, he said, “I don’t understand that term yet, though I don’t work too hard to become the character,” the actor grins. But Bharath identifies himself as a spontaneous actor. “I find it ridiculous when directors ask me to act like someone. Filmmaking is a collaborative process and I have a mind of my own. The director and I build the personality and develop the role as we go along. I like it that way,” he observes.

Raj Bharat talks about his inspiration. “My biggest inspiration has been life,” he chuckles. After a pause, the actor says he likes Nawazzudin Siddique and Vijay Sethupathi