R Madhavan on choosing female co-actors ‘carefully’ as he ages: It can look like you're having fun on movie's pretext
R Madhavan talks about facing insecurities in the film industry as an ageing hero, need of equality in a relationship and its evolution over time
R Madhavan was recently seen in Aap Jaisa Koi, where he played a man in his 40s trying to find his bride. The film shed light on age-related insecurities that men face, and the actor admits having gone through some insecurities in real life too as he aged. He says, “One of the first times you get hit about your age is when your kids’ friends start calling you uncle. It hits you by shock but then you have to come to terms with it.”
The 55-year-old adds that ageing impacts his work choices too. “When you are doing movies, you realise that you have to be careful in the choice of heroines, because even though they still want to work with you, it looks like the actor is having fun on the pretext of the movie. People feel ye picture ke bahaane aish kar raha hai. If that is the overwhelming feeling coming out of a movie, then wo character ke liye respect nahi rehta hai,” he says.
R Madhavan adds, “There is also the realisation that my body strength is not such that I can do things like a 22-year-old. It's essential for me to realise that age appropriateness and the kind of people I'm working with, are aligned so that it doesn't look sleazy.”
The film also talks about the need of equality in a relationship. Ask Madhavan, who is happily married to Sarita Birje, about his take on it and he shares, “The relationship that my mother and father shared, they were also equally and deeply in love with each other, and that I think I share with my wife too. But the sense of equality that my father had in the relationship is very different from the sense of equality that I am having right now. We have to define what that equality means.”
The actor elaborates, “My parents were both working but there was a hierarchy. In some departments somebody had a bigger say and in other departments the other one had that, and it was decided there that this is what equality means. That definition of equality is constantly changing over the period of time, and I think men are trying their best to catch up with it and understand because they have to break their conditioning and understand the new reality about how women want to be treated and how they have to be treated.”
Giving an example, Madhavan shares, “Sometimes opening a door or holding the door for a lady is considered offensive right now by some people. Now the guy is not doing it to offend, he's trying to say this is the manners that I've been taught, but there are many things like that. In a patriarchal society, a man allowing his wife to work is considered to be a generous thing for the husband to do. He doesn't realize ‘allowing’ is the wrong word."
He elaborates, "Him saying ‘I'm proud of the fact that my wife is working’ in the same situation makes him look like a much more accommodating man. So, he has to learn to say ‘I'm really proud of the fact that my wife is working’ instead of saying ‘I'm so happy, I am allowing her to work’. The equality’s terminology has to be understood and the women also have to understand that this guy probably doesn't know that his sense of equality is not really equal.”
