31 Glorious Years Of Chiyaan Vikram

One of the most versatile and creative actors in South Cinema, Chiyaan Vikram completes 31 glorious years in the cine industry. The actor made his debut in 1990 with En Kadhal Kanmani. Ever since then, the actor collaborated with proven directors and also on interesting scripts, resulting in a successful career.

By his own admission, he is 50% Rajinikanth and 50% Kamal Haasan, and thus straddles the line between mass and class. After struggling for nearly a decade to get noticed, dabbling in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, he burst into the limelight through Sethu (1999), directed by Bala, that had him portraying the role of a college rowdy. It went on to fetch a National Film Award. From then on he added the name of his character, the rogue, Chiyaan to his screen name. Thus, Chiyaan Vikram was born.

There was no looking back for Vikram, with a slew of hits, both critical and commercial. And at the peak of his stardom was said to have the second biggest market value for a south Indian actor, only behind Thalaivar Rajinikanth. Not only performance-oriented roles but he also brought the same level of dedication to commercial roles. Vikram did what no other hero was willing to do for the sake of commercial mass cinema.

Unlike others who brought little physical variation to their performances, Vikram adopted a new look for every character, moulding and shaping his physique to suit their persona. He never repeated himself and never became a one-trick pony. He was the ultimate chameleon. Dhil, Kasi, Gemini, Samurai, Dhool, Saamy, Pithamagan, Arul, Anniyan (Aparchitudu) are the films that elevated Vikram to the stratosphere of south Indian cinema.

Vikram became a force to be reckoned with by churning out hit after hit and built a massive fan base not only in Tamil but all over south India including two Telugu states and Kerala. He became the perfect foil to his peers Vijay, Ajith, and Suriya who all were 5-10 years younger than him but got a head start by getting notoriety much earlier.

At a point in time, delays in production kept him off-screen for over 2 years. Eventually, he made his way back to the limelight and by 2009 he bounced back with Kanthaswamy. Then he got critical appreciation in Raavanan, arguably his most powerful performance, as the tribal leader Veeraiya. Eventually, he reunited with Shankar for his magnum opus, I, which brought together four living legends. -Shankar, Vikram, AR Rahman, and PC Sreeram.