Tovino Thomas: "'Minnal Murali 2' will definitely happen - but in due course of time"

Tovino Thomas in 'Thallumaala', slated to release in July. (Image via Twitter/@ttovino)

In a span of 10 years, Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas has made a name for himself not just in Kerala but across India. His 2021 film Minnal Murali, which was released on Netflix India, catapulted him to superhero status - literally!

Now, he is all set to be seen in director Vineeth Kumar’s Dear Friend (released on June 10), director Vishnu G. Raghav’s Vaashi (releasing on June 17) and director Khalid Rahman’s Thallumaala (releasing in July). The characters he has played throughout his career are varied and no one film of his is like the other.

Talking about Dear Friend, Tovino says, “It is an emotional drama. It’s about four friends who begin a start-up and I’m introduced into this group by one of them.” Along with Tovino, we find actor-director Basil Joseph, Darshana Rajendran, Arjun Radhakrishnan and Arjun Lal also starring in the film.

Tovino and Basil Joseph started their careers in 2012 and have collaborated on numerous projects together, the biggest of which is Minnal Murali. What was this friendship he shared with Basil all about? Tovino answers candidly, “I’m from a small town and so is Basil so we are both small-town boys. We came into the film industry on our own with no godfather or connections and we have come this far in the film industry on our own merit. These are similarities we both have but we are both very different people. I think that’s what makes us good friends - if I need advice, I go to him and he comes to me, if he needs help. There’s a lot of give and take.”

The Naaradan actor has been shooting back-to-back this year and reveals that he has hardly been home. “But my family and my parents come and spend time with me. They don’t wait for me to come home!” he says, adding that the kind of roles he is being offered in Malayalam cinema are hard to turn down. “I don’t look at box office numbers and whether the film is going to collect Rs 100 crores, Rs 500 crores or Rs 1,000 crores - the story and role have to be intriguing and interesting. At the end of the day, I need to make and be part of quality cinema. So it doesn’t matter to me that a film is not a big budget film - I like doing small films because of the versatility they offer; I don’t want to confine myself to big films. After Minnal Murali became a big hit, I got so many offers for big films but I didn’t want to take them up because I felt it would be a repetition of what I had already done,” explains Tovino.

The Minnal Murali superhero says he deliberately picks projects that are different from each other. Says Tovino, “I look at every film offered and see if I am going to enjoy playing that role and make sure it’s not like any role in my previous films. If I keep playing similar roles then I’ll get bored and if I get bored, then the audience would definitely get bored, right? So I want to keep doing something different and surprise the audience also. So Dear Friend is an emotional drama, Vaashi is a courtroom drama and Thaalumaalu is a full-on entertainer!”

Has he never thought about venturing into other languages like his colleague Fahadh Faasil who was in the Telugu film Pushpa and Tamil film Vikram recently. “I am offered a lot of good projects in Malayalam cinema so unless I am offered something amazing, I don’t think I want to take it up,” replies Tovino who adds that there are so many good stories to still be told in Malayalam cinema.

In his recent films, Tovino’s physique has undergone a change and one sees him much leaner and not with the six-pack abs. “For Thallumaala, I have three different looks and I play a 24-year-old in one look; so I had to lose weight. Since I shot this right after Minnal Murali, I became much leaner, losing about 10kgs in the process. I like the leaner look versus the all beefed up look. This helps me get into diverse characters more easily I think,” he says pensively.

With the success of Minnal Murali, the question on the audience’s mind is when will the sequel come out. “Making ‘Minnal Murali’ was very organic - it all just came together, and I think that’s how the ‘Minnal Murali 2’ should also come together - naturally. We are all doing different things now and when the second movie happens, it will be natural. I don’t think forcing ourselves to make it because the first one was a hit will be good. Minnal Murali 2 will definitely happen - but in due course of time,” signs off Tovino Thomas.