“I often see only my mistakes. I always feel I could have done better. Every artist goes through it.”

I want my films to make money first. Awards and all can come later.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.

I try to choose characters that don’t remind the audience of my previous roles. I make a conscious effort for that.

I am a bad boy. I don’t come across clearly to a lot of people, so I am bad for them.

I will happily sit at home and take care of the house.

It’s the failure of my debut film which made me an actor, which made me want to succeed in the industry. But that doesn’t mean I regret whatever choices I’ve made over the years. No, not even ‘Kaiyethum Doorathu!’

I’m not a person who goes out of my way to change my look. I like my characters to look as natural as possible.

I wasn’t really sure about the kind of films I wanted to be a part of. That’s when I saw ‘Aaranya Kaandam.’ I was stunned; it was such a stylish film.

I want my films to do the talking. I feel if people have to understand me better, I should do more good films. I just want them to know me through my films.

I am not affected or carried away by success or failure.

I love the forest. It is the place where you hear yourself better.

Mistakes happen, and then you try to overcome those. I like that process.

I’ve done only things I’ve liked, and I’m happy that others have liked them, too. I hope it keeps going that way. But l would never want to do films which please just one set of audience; they should connect with everyone.

Mohan Raja is an interesting filmmaker. He is constantly, if I may use the word, contradicting himself. He explains a scene, and then he will try to break that and rebuild it. That, to me, is filmmaking. Every scene is constructed after a lot of discussions.

When I am with my friends, I am comfortable.

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.

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

The great artist is the simplifier.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.

In every photographer there was a painter, a true artist, awaiting expression.

I do not seek. I find.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.