CROSS currents

A well-told story is going to be a straight hit, regardless of language, scale or budget. As you might’ve discovered during your quarantine binge-watch, it’s an axiom upheld by a bold new generation of film-makers and actors from the South Indian film industries. Few others are systematically scripting content that is hyperlocal and aesthetically global all at once, and helping unfamiliar audiences caper past that “one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles”. Meet five eminently watchable actors fronting Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada cinema, as they dwell on their extraordinary journeys and why, pandemic or not, breaking the mould is a full-time job.

- NIDHI GUPTA

Tovino thomas

31, Kochi

HOME RUN: Since his debut in the 2012 film Prabhuvinte Makkal, Tovino Thomas’ rise has been mercurial. In a series of power-packed performances in critically acclaimed films like Luca, Godha and Virus, Thomas has essayed characters from all ends of the morality spectrum in Malayalam cinema. This year, he blew us away again in Akhil Paul and Anas Khan’s Forensic. “It could’ve been my biggest commercial hit till date, but it was released just before the lockdown. I’m glad it’s got good ratings on Netflix though.”

HERO WORSHIP: Apart from growing up with the cinema of Mammootty and Mohanlal, Thomas remembers idolising Kamal Haasan. “Before cinema happened for me,” he says, “I once came across Haasan in a hotel cafe in Mumbai. I felt compelled to talk to him so my friends and I went up to him. He spent quite a long time chatting with us. With me, he spoke in Malayalam, in Tamil to a friend from Tamil Nadu, in English to a couple of NRI friends and in Hindi to the friend from North India. So eloquent and insightful.”

WINDS OF CHANGE: As Thomas sees it, the “new wave” of Malayalam cinema is more about “how the content is treated, because we’ve never been deprived of good content. The difference between commercial and art-house cinema is now leaner, films are doing well in both the festival circuit as well in theatres.” But as different genres come up with a hybrid model of formula and art films, he says it’d be wise to keep in mind that “there will always be a ‘new wave’, compared to what currently exists.”