Near death experiences are life altering. For Vishnuu Vishal, it was a reminder as to why he must not let himself get carried away, especially when filming stunts without a body double.
“You could say I was a little enthusiastic. I knew while rehearsing that there was a chance of injuring myself. Oru chinna heroism feeling it was, but I miscalculated,” he smiles.
Costly errors
The incident happened earlier this year on the sets of Prabhu Solomon’s Tamil-Telugu-Hindi trilingual Kaadan, when Vishnuu hit his head against another actor.
- While Vishnuu remains open to multi-starrers, he explains why there aren’t many made in the Tamil industry. “It is very rare to find directors who can provide that balance to a multi-starrer script. The last good multi-starrer in Tamil, where everyone had equal space, was Chekka Chivantha Vaanam. There is also insecurity among actors. The other fact is that you’re only as good as your last film. Only if the next film makes more than your previous film, does the industry consider you a success. Some believe they will lose fan clubs if they do multi-starrers. Then, there are remuneration issues.”
The result was a C5-C6 disc prolapse. A delayed diagnosis, and hesitation on his part to go under the knife, almost caused the actor his life.
“It was my son Aryan’s birthday. I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden, and things went dark. I thought I was going to die,” he recalls, adding that he was driven to a varma kalai centre in Adyar by his father, RC Kudawla, a serving Director-General of Police, in a “very bad shape”.
While the practicians there managed to ease his discomfort, Vishnuu was told that the impact of his blow had affected the spine. It could have been worse.
“My back muscles had taken the brunt of the impact. Otherwise, I would have fractured my vertebrae. I just sat there listening in horror. They told me I was very lucky,” he says, adding that he believes he is “almost 95% recovered” now.
Accidents are not uncommon for the 34-year-old star.
Vishnuu Vishal with Vikranth
He will tell you he is an accidental actor, having had the seeds of big screen dreams planted in his head by an ambitious uncle, whilst he sat on a bed recovering from... guess what? An injury.
This one was unfortunate, though, as it cost him his childhood dream — playing cricket for the Indian team.
“It was a shin fracture. After recovering, I couldn’t play at the same level as before the injury. Those days sports medicine wasn’t as advanced as it is today,” says the man, who, when he was younger, captained a TN side which featured two current IPL captains — Ravichandran Ashwin and Dinesh Karthik.
Father before cop
The younger of two siblings, Vishnuu credits his father for supporting his every life decision, be it cricket, his marriage or films.
- Vishnuu Vishal has often hit back at what he thinks are unfair critiques of commercial films. “It’s like walking into an Italian restaurant, and asking why are you serving Italian food? Commercial films are the biggest selling genre in Tamil. In this industry, the only question that matters is how much did your previous film collect? It is never if that was a good film or not. The other problem is when big star vehicles are affected, it impacts the entire industry. If a commercial film collects, then 10 small films will receive finance. It is a very big chain, you’ll only understand when you’re on the inside. If a big film fails, the distributor and the theatres will hesitate to screen smaller films, because a big loss can only be recouped with another big film.”
The adoration has led him to pen a script on his father, who is set to retire from the Indian Police Service in four months, which he intends to turn into a feature film in the future. “I’ll play my father on screen,” says the proud son.
But the actor’s critics (and detractors) in the industry have often alleged that he fashioned his climb up the ladder leveraging his father’s position of power.
The actor denounces these claims, and insists he never had an advantage. “Being [his] son, what I got was... if someone met you in 10 days, they would meet me in two days. If someone made you wait five hours, they made me wait for two hours. Apart from that, no one gave me an opportunity, or showed me respect,” says the actor, who admits to feeling let down by the industry initially.
Vishnuu Vishal in a still from Silukkuvarpatti Singam
“I felt cheated because a lot of people wanted a relationship with my father, and they played me. They would commit to me, and then back out later,” he adds.
A few favours were sought; some of them downright silly. “Even for drunk driving, they would call and request my father’s (who was an ADGP then) intervention. And these were the good directors and big name producers. What would you do... as a father? All he wanted was his son to do well in the industry,” says Vishnuu.
Bollywood dreams
The silver lining from the injury is that the actor, who hit the bull’s eye with Ratsasan, had plenty of time to listen to scripts.
Vishnuu Vishal | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
In fact, so much time that he has signed on to appear in six films. These include the sports themed film where he will share space with actor Vikranth, and a Vasanthabalan film which is in pre-production.
Vishnuu also holds the Hindi remake rights for Ratsasan, and confirms that he will make his Bollywood debut if a meeting with a big name producer in Mumbai is successful. He, however, withholds details until everything is set in stone.
Since he is one of the few Tamil actors with an impeccable command over Hindi, it begs the question — why didn’t the crossover happen earlier?
“Because not many knew {that I spoke Hindi}. It’s okay. I’ll start thinking about it now. I won’t say no if I’m approached for a Hindi film,” he says, adding, “One thing I have realised is that there are no certainties. Anything can happen anytime. The one thing I thought was pucca was my marriage. That is not there anymore...” he pauses.
Life’s a rollercoaster
By his own admission, Vishnuu is an emotional person. “I keep myself away from negativity because it leaves me agitated,” he says.
Vishnuu Vishal
While most “negative experiences” in his life have been momentary, the actor admits that the negativity of his divorce will stay with him.
Vishnuu was married to Rajini Natraj, whom he wed in 2011, after years of courtship. The actor announced their legal separation on Twitter in November 2018. “I still cannot understand what happened,” he says.
To explain his situation, the actor reintroduces his personality as it was seven years ago.
“I was an introvert. I probably wouldn’t have done this interview. I never thought I was an achiever and was always low on confidence. I used to look at my father, and my sister, who was a brilliant student, and think if I would ever do better than them in life,” he says.
Since he believed his personality was holding him back, he says he made a conscious decision to be social, and flirt even — only to help him improve his onscreen romance, he specifies.
“That’s when things started going wrong. The question of ‘You’ve changed’ came into being. Somewhere along it became, ‘No, I did not marry this guy’,” he says.
There was no coming back from that point. “You can’t force anyone. I can’t digest [that it ended]. But I must. For the good of my son... (pause)... and hers. I seriously like her even today, and I know she likes me back. She is a good person, and she knows I am too. But I think, sometimes, the universe doesn’t want you to be together,” he adds, in a melancholic tone.
While his personal life unravelled, the actor was working Ratsasan and Silukkuvarpatti Singam.
“I’ve worked so hard for my career. A lot of people may have lost focus. I’m down everyday, but work keeps my mind diverted. I think of my son. I want to support Aryan and his mother for their entire lives,” life,” he says.
“I’m a sportsman. I am used to failures, and bouncing back from them.”