R Madhavan: If the content is good, people will watch it and I’ll survive as an actor

Actor R Madhavan feels that moviegoers nowadays have the luxury to choose from a wide gamut of content available across different platforms, which poses a stiff challenge before artists to choose their projects carefully. The actor, who recently made his web series debut with the crime thriller, Breathe, believes that viewers are no longer dependent on the mainstream film industry for their entertainment, with flourishing platforms and genres at their disposal, which inevitably means good content.

“Audiences [truly] have the right to choose now and they are no longer dependent on just Bollywood. They can now choose from a slew of Hollywood films, because almost every other Hollywood film is releasing in India, which wasn’t the case about 10 years ago. That has opened up an entire field of opportunities for the audience to choose from, and the luxury to watch what they want to,” says the 47-year-old.

Madhavan, currently recovering from a shoulder injury, interprets this as a challenge for the industry and actors. “I personally take that as a challenge, and want to be part of projects that the audience would want to watch. I think the survival technique for me, now, is to be part of those projects that I think will be liked by the audience. If the content is good, people will watch it, and I will survive as an actor,” he quips.

Meanwhile, his web series, where Madhavan stars alongside Amit Sadh, has been getting rave reviews and is being hailed as quite a unique one. Though he had a “great time” shooting for it, the Vikram Vedha (2017) and Saala Khadoos (2016) actor feels that web series are tougher [to shoot] than films.

“There’s a big difference between them. Shooting a web series is the toughest thing to do because each episode is 40 minutes long, and there are nine episodes, which translate into 360 minutes. That means, it is equal to at least two films and you can imagine how it is to shoot for two films together. To keep a track of it everything is really difficult. But, I really enjoyed shooting for it, and I am really happy with the response so far,” he concludes.

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