R Madhavan might be basking in the success of the hit spy thriller franchise ‘Dhurandhar’, but the actor’s journey to stardom was not one of hard lessons. Looking back at the early stages of his career, after his success Mani RatnamIn ‘Alai Payuthey’, Madhavan recalled how industry insiders advised him to focus on films that would connect with audiences beyond the cities if he wanted to reach stardom. Rajinikanth.Madhavan shared in an interview with Brut India, “So people were coming to me saying, ‘You can’t be Rajinikanth until you make films that work in B and C centers. People have to accept you. Only when they call you Thalaiva will you become a South superstar. So, of course, I was getting all these data and they were telling me from certain villages, make films like villages, make them like villages. That.“Convinced by the advice, the actor decided to take on a project that he felt ticked all the boxes. However, things did not go as planned.Recalling the film, he said, “So I accepted a film where I was playing a guy who was struggling to feed himself, who was weak, uneducated, uneducated but had a dream to become a cricketer. That was the film I was doing. The film flopped so badly that the entire studio closed down afterwards.”Although the failure was a painful experience, it eventually became one of the most valuable lessons of his career. Madhavan realized that blindly following advice, even if it seems logical, can be a mistake if one does not trust one’s instincts.Reflecting on that phase, he said, “So I suddenly realized that I should never become what I’ve started to call myself, data ke tattu in Hindi, which means fools who don’t know how to interpret data. Everyone has data. The interpretation of that data and the conclusions you draw from those interpretations will determine how successful you are.’The actor explained that the advice itself was not a mistake, but his understanding was. Instead of copying a formula that worked for others, he learned the importance of finding his own way.“So even though everything they were telling me was true, that wasn’t what I had to do. I had to interpret the data separately and make my B and C center films. That film taught me a lot, with a big slap in the face, what I had to do next.”
