From Tamil cinema’s boy-next-door to Ponniyin Selvan, Jayam Ravi’s journey

Jayam Ravi has mostly found success in romcoms. Mani Ratnam’s 'Ponniyin Selvan' is surely Ravi’s most challenging film till date. (Illustration by Suneesh K)

Arulmozhi Varman, also known as Raja Raja Chola, is widely regarded as the greatest of the Tamil kings. The Brihadeeswara temple, a marvel of architecture, that he had built during his reign is among the four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tamil Nadu. Acclaimed writer Kalki Krishnamurthy’s Ponniyin Selvan, which was made into a two-part film by Mani Ratnam, explores the early years of Arulmozhi’s life through the intriguing genre of historical fiction. Given the context, the actor who plays Arulmozhi had to be someone who is able to register his screen presence and yet, not let his stardom consume the story.

Ravi, who comes from a film family, acted in a few films as a child artist before making his debut as the lead with Jayam (2003), directed by his brother M. Raja who was making his debut as a filmmaker. The film was produced by their father, film editor A. Mohan. The romantic action film, which also starred Sadha, was a remake of the Telugu film by the same title that was directed by Teja. Though the storyline wasn’t particularly original, the film became a box-office success, and both Ravi and Raja prefixed their names with ‘Jayam’.

His next film, M Kumaran Son of Mahalakshmi (2004) was once again a remake directed by his brother and produced by his father, and it marked veteran actor Nadhiya’s return to the Tamil film industry after a decade. The film is about a son who tries to work out a relationship with his estranged father (Prakash Raj), and revolves around the sport of kickboxing. M Kumaran did well at the box-office, minting over Rs 50 crore.
Ravi and Raja went on to do several remakes together, and Ravi was even tagged with the not-so-flattering label of ‘Remake Ravi’. Still, the duo delivered quite a few hits, including blockbuster romcoms Unakkum Enakkum Something Something (2006) and Santhosh Subramaniam (2008).Unakkum Enakkum saw him play the role of an NRI who falls in love with a young woman (Trisha) he meets at a wedding on a visit to India. The mix of romance, comedy and family sentiment worked well with the audience. The ‘Who let the dogs out’ comedy scene from the film is still popular among fans, and is a good example of Ravi’s willingness to take himself lightly on screen.

His next with Raja was the remake of the Telugu original Bommarillu (2006). If M Kumaran was about a father who is uninterested in his son, Santhosh Subramaniam saw Prakash Raj playing a helicopter parent who interferes in everything his son does – from the colour of the shirt he buys to the job that he should do and how he should do it.

While such remakes may not work any more with OTT platforms offering films in dubbing and with subtitles, Santhosh Subramaniam became another superhit, and Ravi’s performance as a frustrated son who finally rebels against his father won him lavish praise from critics. The climax scene when he bursts out and speaks his mind to his father became a massive favourite with young people, and there are many TikTok and YouTube videos of fans recreating the scene with Ravi’s lines.

Peranmai (2009), directed by S.P. Jananathan, was an important film in Ravi’s career. The actor plays a forest guard who hails from a Scheduled Tribe in the film, a marked shift from the urban, boy-next-door kind of roles that he’d played until then. The film is often cited in discussions on the emergence of empowered Dalit and Adivasi characters in Tamil cinema, and Jananathan has spoken about all the trouble he had with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that was determined to underplay the caste discrimination that he had depicted in the film. Speaking to the press after Jananthan’s demise in 2021, maverick director Pa Ranjith, who is often hailed as the torchbearer of anti-caste cinema in Tamil, acknowledged that Peranmai had been a huge inspiration for him.

In Peranmai, Ravi plays Dhuruvan, a forest guard who is entrusted with the responsibility of training NCC cadets. The film shows institutionalized caste discrimination as well as how normalized caste is in everyday life. The scene where Dhruvan explains political economy is among the most popular sequences in the film.

Thani Oruvan (2015), directed by Raja, and starring Ravi and Aravind Swamy as hero-villain is among the actor’s biggest hits. The thriller has Ravi playing a trainee IPS officer who is pitted against a swashbuckling criminal (Aravind Swamy). Swamy may have walked away with all the adulation that came his way for how he played the suave Siddharth Abhimanyu, but Ravi too deserved praise for the effective foil he proved to be. Thani Oruvan enjoys high recall value among fans, and is among the rare examples from contemporary Tamil cinema where the villain receives as much – if not more – importance as the hero.

Ravi and Swamy once again came together for Bogan (2016), directed by Lakshman. The film revolves around the idea of soul-swapping, with Ravi and Swamy acting like each other. Though it received mixed reviews, the performances of both the actors were praised by most critics.

Ravi’s films have been criticized for being overly preachy, and he has occasionally done duds like Bhoomi (2021). However, he has always managed to bounce back with films like Pradeep Ranganathan’s Comali (2019) where he plays a man who wakes up from a 16-year coma; over the years, he has built himself a steady reputation for doing script-driven films in a star-driven industry.

An actor who has mostly found success in romcoms, Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, the adaptation of an iconic work of Tamil literature, is surely Ravi’s most challenging film till date. Not only was the genre new to him, he was also playing the titular role. But Ravi surrendered to the weighty role of Arulmozhi Varman, and his scenes in PS 2 are especially commendable. Mounting elephants, wielding a sword, romancing a princess, bonding with his siblings and trying to live up to the expectations of the people of his kingdom, it is a role that demands physical and mental agility. When it was announced that Ravi would be playing Arulmozhi, not everyone was convinced. But watching the two films together, it becomes clear why he was Ratnam’s choice. For Ravi, Tamil cinema’s eternal boy-next-door, it has truly been a coming-of-age.