When Sivaji Ganesan told Kamal Haasan his acting inspirations: ‘I wanted to be different from my childhood, so as an adult…’

“Your style of acting has influenced many aspects of cinema, and has inspired many young actors, including me,” said Kamal Haasan as he asked the doyen of Indian cinema to talk about the actors who might have inspired his style of acting. A candid Sivaji, who endearingly calls Kamal Haasan ‘raja’ many a time, said it was Hollywood that was one of his earliest inspirations. “I’ve been watching English films for a long time,” said the actor, who went ahead and listed the names of a few of his inspirations.

“Rudolph Valentino, the actor who starred in The Shiek. Then, I have been inspired by the works of Boris Karloff and Charles Boyer. Honestly, I wanted my acting style to be unique and different from all these actors. In fact, right from my childhood, I wanted to be different, that is why I might have been slightly successful as an adult,” said the thespian.

In fact, when Kamal pointed out that Sivaji was more than just ‘slightly successful’ and asked him about specifics he learnt from the other legends, Sivaji immediately said, “It is just practice. It is all trial and error. Acting has to come from us, and we have to be authentic with our expressions. It is all about us. We have to react knowing what is happening around us, and the characters.”  

ALSO READ: Oru Yathramozhi: When a Sivaji Ganesan, Mohanlal project that started off as a film on euthanasia ended up becoming an endearing father-son tale

Sivaji, who was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1997, has not only acted in Tamil films, but has also starred in Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada. The veteran of over 275 films has four children — two sons and two daughters — with both sons, Prabhu Ganesan and Ramkumar Ganesan, becoming actors and filmmakers.