Vijay Sethupathi is gearing up for the release of Merry Christmas. The Sriram Raghavan film also stars Bollywood superstar Katrina Kaif in the lead role. Recently, the actor opened up about his initial days in the film industry. In an interview with Mashable India, Vijay Sethupathi was asked about how after doing a bunch of odd jobs, he kept his passion protected. The actor said, “My story is very short. I came from a marriage and then my wife didn't allow me to go back because she conceived. So I tried to do an interior decoration business. It didn't go well. Then I was an accountant in Dubai and Chennai.”
Vijay Sethupathi also revealed that he was “very shy and introvert”. The 45-year-old added how he decided to take up acting as a career and “kill” his shy nature.
He said, “Then one day I decided to become an actor and I was very shy and introvert. I wanted to kill that. But I didn't know how to kill that. So I created a fake bio-data that I have been in marketing for five years. So if you are in marketing you have to meet new people every day. I thought that I would kill my inferiority complex and I could come out of it too. I tried that for three months. Then one day I saw a theatre, I approached them and asked about the acting course.”
Vijay Sethupathi continued, “But they said that they want an accountant. So I joined them as an accountant. So I was an accountant for two years. While working as an accountant, I was observing actors. Because I thought that if you go there they will teach you all kinds of expressions and you will become an actor. That was my thought about acting. Then I went there, I met the great Mr [Na] Mutthuswamy sir. He told me that this was not an acting course but an actor training course. Through actor training, an actor should learn acting. They must find something within themselves. So nobody can teach acting, which was really surprising. Acting is a talent that you get by birth. Not everyone can do it.” FYI: Na Muthuswamy, a veteran theatre personality, had mentored Vijay Sethupathi, Vinodhini, Vimal and Vidharth among others.
Talking about his initial days and struggle in the industry, Vijay Sethupathi added, “The aim is not to become a hero or a great actor, the aim is to buy a second hand apart and buy an old car and not to live with the tension of paying rent every month. I faced all these for many years but was trying to come out of it. I needed self-respect. I wanted to avoid the hesitation of going and standing in front of someone and asking for a chance. I have always believed that learning is not a straight path, it is a 360 path—it is a circle.”
Coming back to Merry Christmas, the movie will hit the theatres on January 12. It also features Radhika Apte, Sanjay Kapoor and Vinay Pathak, among others.