Why R Madhavan refuses to dye hair; says learnt this from Rajinikanth, Ajith Kumar: ‘Ab safed baal aa gaye toh aa gaye’

Bollywood as a business has many aspects to it, and the job of an actor comes with a lot of prerequisites. Actors put hours and hours in the gym, go through surgery, take prescribed medication and watch everything and anything they put in their body to look fit and young. On the other hand, there are some actors who have never gone the surgery route or tried to make cosmetic changes to themselves in order to attract producers, filmmakers and the audience, so much so that they refuse to even color their hair unless the role calls for it. R Madhavan is one of them. The actor recently talked about his views on ageing and pointed out that letting life and your body take their natural course is the best thing one can do.

He spoke to ETimes about his decision to rock his natural grey hair, rather than dyeing it. The actor gave a simple and straight reply to the question and said that ageing and everything that comes along with it, including grey hair and beards, is natural, and he doesn’t wish to meddle with that. He reveals that he isn’t comfortable living a lie regarding his looks and gives the example of megastar Rajinikanth and actor-turned-racing-driver Ajith Kumar. He said that both men are extremely simple off the screen and don’t pay any heed to how they look if they aren’t in front of a camera. He added that people only try to make themselves look younger because they are trying to compete with much fresher faces who have just joined the industry and that he doesn’t feel any pressure to compete with the new faces.

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Talking about changing his looks and body, Madhavan admitted that he has never felt the need to go to the gym and get picture-perfect six-pack abs. The reason for that is because he feels that no producers are thinking of him when they need someone to look like that. He recalled his role in Saala Khadoos (2016), a role for which Madhavan put on quite a bit of muscle, and said that he is ready to put in whatever work is required if the transformation is for a role. He stated that changing yourself for a role is different, because then you are doing it to be true to the script and the narrative. He admitted that even though people don’t expect him to play certain roles which require the ‘alpha-male’ transformation, he possesses a few surprising notches on his belt, roles that have surprised the people around him.

Madhavan was last seen in the Netflix film Aap Jaisa Koi, along with Fatima Sana Shaikh, a role for which he ultimately had to dye his grey hair. Directed by Vivek Soni, the cast of the film also included Ayesha Raza, Karan Wahi, Namit Das, Manish Chaudhari, and Beena Banerjee.