Exclusive! Balasaravanan: I shed 22 kilos for my role in Don; it helped me play the cop's role in Vilangu

Actor Balasaravanan, who made his debut almost a decade ago, has been often seen doing humour-based roles. Prasanth Pandiyaraj's web series, Vilangu, which started streaming earlier today on Zee5, has him portraying a never-before-seen character, and he is content with positive response on social media.

In an exclusive chat with OTTplay, he talks about his interest in taking up different roles, landing the role in Vilangu, the challenges involved in portraying a stringent cop in the project, offers from other industries and more...

"When I made my debut in 2013, my plan was to become a successful comedian," he begins, adding, "I'm happy that I could achieve what I wished for. But over the years, I developed an interest in depicting diverse characters. I had decided that I don't want to limit myself to an artist who does only humour-based roles. I want to take up character roles and negative roles. If possible, I want to play a hero, too."

According to Bala, it is his friendship with director Prasanth which helped him land the role of Karuppu in Vilangu. Though the filmmaker narrated the whole script, little did he know that he would be offered the most unique role of his career. He says, "I have known Prasanth for a long time, and I was kicked about the project when he narrated the entire story. There is a cop in the series whose antics and dialogues evoke laughter. I thought his plan was to offer me that role, though I wished he would have asked me to play Karuppu."

But to his surprise, Prasanth said the character was written keeping Bala in mind, and the latter's joy knew no bounds. "I was a little apprehensive about asking him about playing the Karuppu character after the narration. But it was a surreal moment for me when I was told that I will be essaying that role," he says excitedly.

So, what kind of preparations did he undergo to play a ruthless cop? He says the role demanded mental preparation more than physical preparation. He had shed more than 20 kilos for Don which came handy for Karuppu's role in Vilangu. "As I was playing a college student in Don, I worked out a lot and lost 22 kilos. This helped me to pull off the role of Karuppu physically. But the real challenge was to change my regular body language and turn myself into a dedicated, but cold-blooded cop who would go to any extent to find truth from criminals," he shares.

He recollects that among the 35 days of work he had for the project, 15 days of shooting was all about acting in scenes which involve torturing criminals by beating them up with the lathi. "Though it wasn't the original lathi, the artists who get beaten would suffer pain. It was quite a distressing thing to beat them repeatedly for the sake of the scene's perfection. There are different ways to use the lathi for torturing criminals. I had a lot of informative conversations with people who are experts in it," he reminisces and adds, "I'm glad to know that all the efforts have paid off."

Sivakarthikeyan's Don, which is expected to hit the screens in March, is his next film. Quiz him about his role, for which he has shed 22 kilos for the character in the film, and he says, "I play Siva's friend in the movie. But it isn't a regular 'hero's friend role'. My role in Don is as important as Karuppu for my career."

The young actor also says that he is slowly and steadily making plans to take up the role of a protagonist in the coming days. He informs that he is already in talks for a project and that an announcement is likely to happen soon. "I know my strengths and weaknesses. I know I can't play a regular commercial hero; I love taking up projects like Yogi Babu's Mandela," he says.  

Bala, who had earlier played a notable character in Tovino Thomas' Godha in Malayalam, reveals that he currently has two Mollywood films in his kitty. "All I can say is that I play a terrorist in one project, and a tea shop owner in the other one. I'm too lazy when it comes to approaching offers in other languages. For now, my focus is choosing interesting characters in Tamil," he signs off.