Noted stand-up comedian, Karthik Kumar, who ventured to cinema with Maniratnam’s Alaipayuthae, has now decided to call it quit to acting.
The theatre artist turned actor has acted in over 19 films in his career spanning over a decade. He ventured to do some heroic roles too.
Married to singer Suchitra, Karthik Kumar suprised all by calling it quits to cinema on Monday.
He wrote on his Facebook page, ’19 Feature films later I’m finally stopping – I’m not going to seek out more work in Cinema as an actor… its time to hang those boots, for good, or for a long while… either way they gotta come off now’.
‘Going to shoot for my 19th feature – a cute comedy drama by a director whose tone of comedy is much enjoyable… I’m going through the charades of haggling with production, dates juggling, begging for bound script and dance master fearing… the usual’.
‘In my first feature as a Main Lead- a lot was expected of me… much more than i expected of myself – there was an air of anticipation of finding the next Arvind Swamy, the next Madhavan
etc… like there was a stereotype whose boxes i had to check and get into the cookie cutter !.
I started resisting that mentally from day one… but that only made my life more difficult… i wanted to be cast in the negative lead – what i got was the chocolate boy romantic hero…’
‘I set myself up for a fall, when i accepted the part coz i told myself ‘its a feature film! who gets a feature film offered to them! its something! grab it!’… I had Cine managers signing me up for the potentially long list of such roles that i could be attracting thereafter’.
‘ And for now… I’m unavailable as an actor, to myself even – coz iv hurt myself for too long… and in that process allowed everyone else to do the same… ‘, he wrote.
‘Being on Mani sir’s set, Discussing Art with PC sir, Arvind from KNM, Nandu from Chaurahen, Fighting for value for my character Seenu in YNM against a Dhanush, the most heartfelt selfish Uppili in PSP, negative roles in NI and EN, doing Crazy Mohan in KKM, and being in love in Veppam, and a fallible real parent in P2… i did pretty well! But I’m a failure…
Karthik Kumar concluded, ‘I failed to see that i should have asked for more… i failed to believe in myself… i failed as a Film actor because of Me’.
