Although he currently ranks as one of the finest actors of his generation, with a massive fan base, “Chiyaan” Vikram’s ascent to the top was not a cakewalk. Despite hailing from a family of film professionals — his father, Vinod Raj, was a small-time actor but did not experience much success, and his maternal uncle, Thiagarajan, is a renowned actor-director — Vikram did not find much luck initially. Though he debuted playing the male lead in En Kadhal Kanmani (1990), Vikram soon found himself relegated to supporting roles, working in various languages, including Malayalam, to survive and hone his craft.
During the initial phase of his career, Vikram even dubbed for other actors, such as Ajith Kumar, Prabhu Deva, and Abbas, in films like Amaravathi, Kaadhalan, Kadhal Desam, and Kandukondain Kandukondain. Recently, legendary Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap revealed that the actor dubbed for the character Bhiku Mhatre (Manoj Bajpayee) in the Tamil version of Ram Gopal Varma’s iconic crime drama Satya (1998) as well. Anurag also expressed his elation at seeing Vikram’s subsequent success unfold right before his eyes after the release of Bala’s Sethu (1999).
“When Satya was being dubbed in Tamil, Vikram dubbed for Bhiku Mhatre. He was a dubbing artiste-actor. He didn’t have enough work at that time. Then he did Sethu, but it had only one show initially and that too at 12 noon, which Chakri (JD Chakravarthy) and I caught. And then we saw the movie blowing up in front of our eyes. One person’s conviction, belief and right casting works much more than anything else,” he shared during a chat with Sudhir Srinivasan. He mentioned that he was so blown away by the film that he immediately approached his mentor, RGV, and bought the rights to remake the movie in Hindi. Although Anurag began work on it, he was apparently removed from the project after urging Salman Khan, who had agreed to take on the lead role, not to shave his chest hair. Sethu was eventually remade in Hindi as Tere Naam (2003) by actor-director Satish Kaushik.
How Dhanush’s rise influenced Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s casting in Gangs of Wasseypur
He also recalled watching Dhanush’s first movie, Thulluvadho Ilamai (2002), in the early 2000s without subtitles and still managing to capture its essence, thanks to good filmmaking. Anurag further asserted that watching Dhanush’s entry into cinema and subsequent rise gave him the confidence to cast Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the lead role in the Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) duology. “Back then, it felt like a very odd casting because a boy looking like that would never be a protagonist in a Hindi film. Dhanush’s subsequent journey, as well as watching RGV’s casting choices, played a key role in making me fearless to cast Nawazuddin Siddiqui,” he added.
