“The closest encounter I had with films in my childhood was sitting on the lap of my father at a shooting set, and he would say ‘rain,’ and it started raining, and then he would say ‘song,’ and people started dancing. I thought I was sitting on God’s lap.”

I like movies made by Spike Lee – doing those films out of the U.S., that is really daring.

I would like to do movies of all genres.

I want to entertain viewers as much as possible.

I thoroughly enjoyed shooting for ‘Velaikkaran,’ and I made a great friend in Sivakarthikeyan during the process. Also, it was wonderful working with director Mohan Raja. I have not seen a director who takes so much effort to get things the best way possible.

I do only what I like. If we do something we don’t like, we will become someone else.

People often ask whether marriage has changed me. I didn’t marry because I had to change.

I don’t know how to be professional. But I always enjoy what I do.

I give my best to each role that I do.

All I believe in is, you need to be yourself.

When I listen to a basic thought, I try to visualise the cinema in it. Sometimes it is dark, sometimes boyish, sometimes amateurish. It is a trial and error method. But the bottom line is that I want to entertain the audience.

I want the audience to watch my films, and that is what I value more than any awards.

The characters I portray are an extension of what I’ve seen, heard, or read, and so what you see in my films are how I understand life.

People know me through my characters. I don’t think they have any idea about the individual that I am. They know I am a director’s son, and I am married to an actress.

I am a person who doesn’t like responsibility of any kind. But I do enjoy what I do.

It doesn’t matter to me how I look on screen. What matters to me is how I connect with the audience.

When I began acting, my biggest fear was whether the audience will appreciate the kind of films I do.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.

In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.

A dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won’t settle for anything less.

It is about learning to move with your grief, and dance.

Telling each other the truth and being who we are, and having space for the other person’s vulnerability in being who they are, allows us to move in a kind of dance together that’s very fluid and graceful.

The things a man has to have are hope and confidence in himself against odds. And he must be ready to choose death before dishonor without making too much song and dance about it.

I should be on Broadway. You have to sing, you have to dance, you have to speak well, and I’m good at all of those!