It is inevitable. Actors from the independent film space won’t remain there eternally. They eventually move on to bigger, more mainstream cinema. And their fans cannot always expect them to think as they did when they began their careers. However, the serious ones—most of them with a strong foundation in theatre—are rarely seen abandoning their roots. There are stellar examples: Jaideep Ahlawat, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Gulshan Devaiah. Roshan Mathew, originally from Malayalam cinema, sits comfortably in the same league.
It’s been a decade since the 33-year-old actor made his debut in Adi Kapyare Kootamani and an English-language web series, Tanlines. Roshan may not have found blockbuster success as a solo lead yet, but that is hardly a reflection of the astute performer he is. After all, he enjoys a career that would make any newcomer starting out today green with envy. Within five years of his debut, Roshan entered Hindi cinema with Anurag Kashyap’s Choked, followed the very next year by Darlings (co-starring Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, and Vijay Varma). There was also a significant milestone in the form of Poacher, the Prime Video web series from the makers of Delhi Crime.
A decade later, Roshan has added what he calls his biggest and most exciting milestone yet: Chatha Pacha, inspired by the WWE. It is a full-fledged commercial entertainer where he not only flexes his action-star muscles but also plays a character integral to the plot, despite sharing the screen with two other actors.
Chatha Pacha sees Roshan working with a first-time director, Adhvaith Nayar, who is actor Mohanlal’s nephew. But there was a time when Roshan wasn’t always open to working with newcomers. He admits he was prone to intellectualising. “I felt like I got into a strange kind of comfort zone when I was too careful,” he says. “I have since decided to go with my gut feeling. If I sense that a project is going to be something special, I try to make the best version possible of what we are working on. Earlier, I was sceptical because I wasn’t familiar with a director’s work. But that doesn’t mean they lack talent. Many have immense potential. They may be learning on the job, but their experience can turn out to be more truthful.”
Roshan believes that there is no such thing as a truly “ideal” or “dream” project. Earlier, he felt that it simply wasn’t yet time for him to encounter one. Over the years, his idea of the ideal has evolved with experience. His approach now is straightforward. “Grab a project with potential and make it as close as possible to the ideal I have in mind,” he says.
He also admits that being an actor today—when predicting audience response is increasingly difficult—is challenging. “There are films I have put a lot of effort into that didn’t do well in theatres. Audiences aren’t even willing to give them a shot, despite critical acclaim. But the same films perform well on OTT. Regardless, at some point you have to choose projects you feel strongly about,” he says.
So, is Roshan now working purely for the joy of his craft, or do validation and reaching maximum eyeballs still factor into his choices? “When I started out, joy was the only priority. But, very soon, I realised this is a consumer-driven industry,” he says. “It’s impossible to work here while ignoring the audience. Today, I try to find a balance. I don’t operate with the logic of chasing maximum eyeballs. It’s different, however, in Bollywood, where catering to a massive audience becomes the driving force.” When Roshan imagines operating that way, he shudders, “That is risky,” he says, “If you try to please everyone, the number of compromises just keeps mounting.”
Roshan says the only way to find more peace and sanity is to take things one project at a time and constantly better oneself. He returns to the question of audience acceptance. “For that to happen, there has to be a certain level of appreciation on their part. Obviously, we enjoy the celebrity status, fame, or money, but it has to be purely out of love for the job, first and foremost. That has to be the top-most priority.”
Chatha Pacha, which released recently in theatres, is his most ‘mass’ film yet. “I have always said that I want to be part of all kinds of films. But the person inside us selects only those that excite us at a given point,” he says, “I have gone wrong whenever I felt like doing a commercial film just for the sake of it. After a couple of bad outings, I realised that’s the wrong way of doing things. In drama school, we were taught to ask: what are you saying, who are you saying it to, where are you saying it, and—most important—why are you saying it. When some commercial films didn’t work, I shifted my attention to projects that suited me, because I knew I could do them well. At the same time, if I want to keep doing work with depth and continuing discovering myself, I will also have to also engage with commercial cinema. At the end of the day, this is an industry, and you have to earn your space. I did Chatha Pacha because it happens to be something where these two sensibilities meet.”