Arvind Swamy returns: How the lover boy from Roja, Bombay charmed us in 'Thani Oruvan'

One of the biggest happenings this year in Kollywood is the return of Arvind Swamy. Considered to be one of the most handsome south Indian actors, Swamy made a sensational comeback to commercial cinema with the Mohan Raja’s Thani Oruvan. The lover boy from Mani Ratnam’s Roja and Mumbai, who has had a fanatic female following, played a stylish, suave and deadly villain in Thani Oruvan. It was not a typical Tamil film villain who gets beaten black and blue by the hero in the last reel. Instead, the character Arvind portrayed was a cold blooded guy who plays mind games with the hero, Jayam Ravi, and is always one step ahead. The villain portrayal struck a chord with Tamil audiences and Thani Oruvan turned out to be a blockbuster. [caption id=“attachment_2522366” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Arvind Swamy. Image from IBN Live.[/caption] Arvind Swamy started his career in 1991 with Mani Ratnam’s Rajinikanth hit Thalapathy and went on to do his most memorable films, Roja and Bombay, with the ace director. In 2006, he went on a sabbatical, till Mani Ratnam pursued him to return to cinema with Kadal (2013). It unfortunately turned out to be a dud at the box-office. Arvind was a reluctant actor, as his life revolved around the IT Company he had set up. In fact he has just done 20 films in the 24 years of his career, while his contemporaries have already completed nearly 60 to 70 films in the same time period. But in a Thani Oruvan promotional interview Arvind clarifies, “The reality is that I’m an accidental actor, not a reluctant one and I myself am surprised that I have completed 20 films in my career. I had no interest in taking up acting as a career as I was planning to do an MBA after finishing Bombay, but Mani Ratnam advised me against it.” However, Arvind went ahead and did it anyway. When asked about his vanishing act from the arc lights for seven years, Arvind points out that he was only 21 when he did Roja and did not go to a film school to learn acting. Arvind explains, “I enjoyed the experience but I wasn’t prepared for the subsequent stardom. To be honest, I found it stifling and wanted to get out of it. In fact, the seven to eight years that I was away, I thoroughly enjoyed running my own company and did not miss cinema. A comeback wasn’t on the cards, but it happened" Once again, it was his friend and mentor Mani Ratnam who brought him back to cinema after learning of an accident that had injured Arvind’s spine and left him partially paralysed in one leg. During the time, the filmmaker motivated him and encouraged him to make a comeback as a do-gooder priest in his coastal love story Kadal. The director of Thani Oruvan, Mohan Raja says, “ It was a honour that Arvind Swamy agreed to hear my script narration, as my reputation was that of a director specialised in making remakes. When I narrated the story, he agreed to play the role of the antagonist, because he liked the way the character came across.” Arvind Swamy adds, “What I liked best about the character is that he isn’t apologetic about his villainy. In most commercial films, there will be a flashback of the bad guy to show why he became evil. Thani Oruvan doesn’t do that.” He has now been offered Rs 5 Crore to repeat the villain act in the Telugu remake of Thani Oruvan with Ramcharan, Chiranjeevi’s son, playing the hero. For now, Arvind is back to what he loves the most: running his company on a daily basis.