BackVijay Sethupathi leads recovery for films down south
Referred to by fans and media as 'Makkal Selvan', meaning ‘people’s treasure,’ Sethupathi is best remembered for Balaji Tharaneetharan directorial Seethakaathi, Thiagarajan Kumararaja's Super Deluxe; and for his negative avatars, such as in Karthik Subbaraj's Petta alongside Rajinikanth.
PremiumActor Vijay Sethupathi has dominated movie theatres down south this week with two releases across languages—Tamil romantic action anthology Kutty Story and Telugu romantic drama Uppena. The latter has grossed opening weekend collections of Rs.26 crore worldwide, adding to the quick recovery that south Indian states have been showing post the seven-month covid-19 shutdown last year.
To be sure, Sethupathi also played the antagonist in Tamil action-drama Master, starring Vijay in the lead role, that released last month and has made around Rs. 200 crore in domestic box office collections.
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Referred to by fans and media as "Makkal Selvan", meaning ‘people’s treasure,’ Sethupathi has starred in more than 50 films to date. Having joined the Chennai-based theatre group Koothu-P-Pattarai as an accountant where he observed actors from close quarters, Sethupathi started his journey as a background actor, particularly playing the role of the lead character's friend in a few films, and appearing in television series, such as Nalaya Iyakunar for Kalaignar TV. He got his first lead role in Seenu Ramasamy's Thenmerku Paruvakaatru (2010), later finding popularity with the thriller Pizza (2012), and comedy entertainer Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom (2012).
Along with Mani Ratnam's multi-starrer Chekka Chivantha Vaanam and romantic drama 96 directed by C. Prem Kumar, Sethupathi is best remembered for Balaji Tharaneetharan directorial Seethakaathi, Thiagarajan Kumararaja's Super Deluxe, and for his negative roles such as in Karthik Subbaraj's Petta alongside Rajinikanth. During the second half of 2019, he made his Malayalam and Telugu debuts with Maarconi Mathaai and Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy, respectively.
In 2019, movie portal Film Companion ranked Sethupathi's performance, as a transwoman in Super Deluxe, among the 100 Greatest Performances of the Decade. “It’s an accepted truth that Vijay Sethupathi likes to go where no actor has gone before. Still, the transwoman he played in Super Deluxe – with a paunch, without hair (and with a fabulous wig for a cover), without remorse (at first) – was something that left the industry searching for its jaw on the theatre floor. It wasn’t just the performance or the writing of the character that was disruptive…It was the guts, the utter lack of vanity, the conviction inside him that did not say “I will play this character but make it a double role, so I can be macho in that other character" It may be the most anatomically correct description, but it’s unlikely we’ll see a more balls-out performance anytime soon," the portal wrote on him.
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