When I signed 'Kaaka Muttai,' a lot of directors told me that I shouldn't be doing the role of a mother so early in my career. But I went ahead, as I aspire to do challenging roles.
I want to do glam roles, too. I don't want to restrict myself when it comes to doing good cinema.
The problem of sexism is getting better, but I don't know if it's getting better fast enough. We see more roles for women that don't entirely revolve around the way in which they function in a man's life, but typically those women are almost always white, and even then, there are only a few of them.
All my cop/gangster dramas have been spaced out, but somewhere, the films in which I played the bad guy were extremely successful, so people are under the impression that I play only such roles. I call it selective amnesia.
As an actor with a star status, I can't restrict myself to one type of films and roles.
Early in my career, I got roles that demanded that I be fit to carry off the angry young man look. Of course, I'm a fitness freak, and that's something I picked up from my dad.
I have earned enough money in my life. When I started my career, for about 10 years, I told myself I want to make money. Now, I just want to do different roles.
There are a lot of roles in Shakespeare, basically. If I feel that the script is a movie, I would be interested in doing any role of Shakespeare's.
Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there's a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.
I ultimately wanna do big movies, and I've been so close so many times. They keep giving my roles to girls with just a little more exposure than me.
