Is it possible for a superstar with a larger-than-life image to play an ordinary man? Shah Rukh Khan did it in Ashutosh Gowariker's Pardes.
Now it's Ajay Devgn's turn.
Drishyam, the remake of the spectacularly successful film of the same title in Malayalam and Tamil, finds Ajay Devgn donning the mantel of the working class man whose only ambition in life is to keep his family protected from external violation.
The film's very astute director Nishikant kamat says it wasn't at all difficult to get Devgn to abandon his bare-torsoed super-hero's image. "This is Ajay's only film where he hasn't even planted a slap on anyone's cheek. There is absolutely no larger-than-life antics here. Luckily Ajay and I were on the same page from the start. He completely surrendered to his character."
The director and his leading man together worked on Ajay's character's looks. "The clothes, the bicycle he rides on, the family values are all very different from what Ajay's image has been so far. Not that Ajay has not played working-class heroes before. He has done so in films like Zakham. But in Drishyam it is a completely unexpected twist in his personality."