Just before exchanging pleasantries with actor Saravanan, we learned that composer Deva had passed away. Without missing a beat, Saravanan teared up and reminisced about the veteran composer's immense integrity. The actor reached out for tissues to mask the tears and regain composure. Within a minute, he changed his demeanour and asked if we could start the interview. He had a handful of interviews to give during the promotional drive for the second season of his popular upcoming ZEE5 series, Sattamum Needhiyum, which begins streaming on Friday. Saravanan didn’t want to waste anyone else’s time because grief is personal. “I can’t help but believe everything happens for a reason,” begins Saravanan, who started out as a leading actor in the early 90s. After a string of successes and a spate of failures, he reinvented himself by playing solid supporting characters that added real value to those films. As technology evolved, he stepped into the world of OTT by playing an interesting character in season 2 of Suzhal, and now, he is headlining his own series on ZEE5.
Playing a hero after a while, and that too in a courtroom drama would have been a scintillating feeling for Saravanan, but the zen-like actor says all of this is just his way of keeping his son happy. “He was born when I was almost 50. Everything is because of God’s grace. Whatever I am doing today is, in a way, a gift for him. I remember when he came to the shooting spot for one of my films, and we were filming an action sequence where a co-star had to kick me. My son was disappointed to see me in that scene. I tried to explain to him that actors like me, in our 50s, don’t get to play the hero. Now, when I get to play the lead in a series like Sattamum Needhiyum, I have to ascribe it to God’s grace, right?” asks Saravanan, who once again tears up but fights it back to express his gratitude to the makers of the series, including director Balaji Selvaraj, and the streamer, ZEE5.
In fact, Sattamum Needhiyum 2 is a rare occurrence in the Tamil OTT space where many series are left in limbo after a single season. But this courtroom drama has found favour with the streamer and the audience, alike, and has found its second season just a year after the first. “While the first part was high on the sentimental value, we have dialled it down to focus more on the legal drama,” shares Saravanan, who squares off against Varalaxmi Sarathkumar in this season. They play opposing counsels in a case involving a murder, unlikely murderers, and an unforgiving system. The actor says his role as advocate Sundaramoorthy was quite challenging, even more than Paruthiveeran’s Sithappu, which breathed life into his second coming. “Since I started off as a hero, my speed and dialogue delivery are always on a different plane. Here, Sundaramoorthy is a reluctant lawyer, and not the bombastic advocate that heroes often play onscreen. I had to slow things down, be a lot more subtle, and even walk with a lethargic gait. This was such a wonderful opportunity, and it is in search of such characters that I even entered cinema,” says Saravanan, adding that it was interesting how courtroom dramas need to have a lot of dialogue exchanges, and yet, shouldn’t be too much either. “Audience shouldn’t get bored, right? The performance and body language should literally speak louder than the words, and I have worked hard to bring that difference.”
In that regard, it was clear that Saravanan is more Sithappu than Sundaramoorthy in real life. While he attributes this to growing up in police quarters and being a student leader in college, Saravanan understands that versatility is important for an actor's growth. That’s why he wishes many of the other characters he played in his second coming had received equal love from the audience. “There’s Thambi Vettothi Sundaram (2011), Pandigai (2017), and Gargi (2022), to name a few. In fact, while filming Gargi, I was emotionally disturbed. The young kid who played my daughter was so good. I love that film, and when such quality films don’t get the attention they deserve, it gives you a lot of perspective. I have learnt to be unperturbed by both success and failure,” says Saravanan.
Even with a clear sense of the vagaries of cinema, one can’t help but feel that Saravanan is underutilised in Tamil cinema. “This has always been happening in cinema, right?” asks Saravanan, who believes oscillating fortunes decide the equations in cinema. “I have seen people’s behaviour change after delivering a single hit. I have seen people develop God’s complex and treat others with disdain. I have seen the highs and lows, right? I know how wings can form overnight and be clipped the following night. As an actor, my job is to do justice to the roles I get, and never stop giving it my all to cinema. Nothing more, nothing less,” says the actor, who signs off by pointing out how the world doesn’t stop revolving just because the egos of a few get bruised. “What I’ve learned through everything that life has thrown me is very simple: In this competitive world, being a struggler who never gives up is the greatest rebellion.”
