Vijay Sethupathi: The actor who undercuts all aspects of a ‘star’

A look at how Farzi actor Vijay Sethupathi breaks the existing constructs of the 'hero' image.

By: Entertainment Desk , Edited by Kirubhakar Purushothaman

Chennai | February 9, 2023 02:51 PM IST

5 min read

Vijay Sethupathi will be seen next in Farzi.

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In Jawan, two entirely different stars would lock horns. Shah Rukh Khan, the quintessential hero, who checks all the boxes of what makes a superstar, will clash with Vijay Sethupathi, an actor who has carefully undercut all the constructs that are supposed to make someone a star. Over the years, there have been many South Indian actors who have tried their luck in Bollywood, and the latest to join the list is Prabhas. Yet, there’s a difference between this bunch and Sethupathi. While other actors from the South had to fit into a preset mould (this holds true even for Kamal Haasan), only one actor from down South brought his own definition of stardom to Bollywood. That’s Dhanush. Now, the second one to pull off a similar feat is Sethupathi with the Hindi series Farzi.

There’s a stark difference in the perception of stars in the North and South. The heroes up North are representations of a model or a goal for a common man. A figure one needs to aspire to and become. On the contrary, Tamil cinema audiences have made stars out of actors who look like them. Be it Rajinikanth or Vijayakanth or Sarathkumar or Prabhu or Vijay or Sivakarthikeyan or Vijay Sethupathi, stars in Kodambakkam are not a model to work towards. They are stars because a layman is able to relate to them–to the way they looked. Sethupathi just took things even further.

Even the debut of Vijay Sethupathi is rather a unique story in Tamil cinema. He was one of the few late bloomers in K-Town, who made his debut as a hero with Thenmerku Paruvakaatru in 2010 at the age of 32. Before the film, Sethupathi was doing many uncredited roles for many years. He quickly became popular for his candid and restrained performance, and as he was turning out to be a well-known hero, the actor played the role of a middle-aged kidnapper named Das in Sudhu Kavvum. Das, with greying hair and mental health issues, wouldn’t be the first or even the last choice of an actor, who has just begun to make his presence felt in the film industry. But Sethupathi turned Das into an iconic character and the film a blockbuster. Suddenly, there was a new hero on the block, who was redefining heroism.

And after two years, Sethupathi played the role of a lonely old man in Orange Mittai, who develops a heartwarming bond with a paramedic. The film wasn’t a commercial hit, but Sethupathi proved that he wasn’t playing by the rules. In the same year, he also played a lover boy in Naanum Rowdy Thaan! In 2016, the actor proved that he is good at regular commercial fares as well with the film Sethupathi. As a macho and conservative police officer, Sethupathi announced that the actor can play the commercial game if he chooses to.

Also Read | Vijay Sethupathi: ‘My character in Farzi is like a fruit salad, a mix of everything’

By the time Vikram Vedha came out in 2017, Vijay Sethupathi couldn’t care less about the perfect body an actor is expected to have. As Vedha in the film, Sethupathi proved you don’t need a chiselled body to have a swag of a gangster (note that when the film was remade in Hindi, Hrithik Roshan, the Greek god of Bollywood, played the role). In 2019, with Super Deluxe, he played the role of a balding transgender person named Shilpa. It was clear by then that Sethupathi would go to any extent to play a role that he wants to.

Sethupathi once said that MG Ramachandran aka MGR, the former CM of Tamil Nadu, is one of his biggest inspirations. Yet, this fan and the idol are polar opposites in the way they used cinema. MGR is known for not smoking in his films, and he would never play a villain. Even some of his characters that had grey shades would turn goodie-good by the end of the film. On the other hand, we have Sethupathi as Bhavani in Vijay’s Master, who drugs, exploits and murders minors. Nothing is off-limits! That’s also the film where Sethupathi proudly shows off his dad bod, which turned out to be the most-relished scene in the film. He again flaunted his body in Kamal Haasan’s Vikram. Many hailed him for representing the body of an average man on screen. Maybe, that’s why he is called Makkal Selvan (People’s treasure).

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