Bharath takes on Simbu

'Sad phase of my career'

His performance in Vaanam might have been well received, but Bharath is peeved about the publicity that he was denied during the promos of the film. "I've not been honoured," the actor says, "I've done a multi-starrer before (Pattiyal) and director Vishnuvardhan had ensured that both the actors in the film got due recognition in terms of publicity." According to him, that wasn't the case for Vaanam. "People loved my character and I learnt a lot while working on the film. But, what matters at the end of the day is your face on the publicity material and I'm unhappy that my count is low. To be frank, there was almost nothing!" So, did he get a chance to speak to producer Ganesh and actor Simbu? "Yes," he says, "And they said they'll do the promotions for me as well but I could see only one face in the posters and publicity material of the film. To some extent, I could talk to them but beyond a limit, I did not want to lose my self-respect as well. Now, I just want people to know that I'm not against multi-starrers but Vaanam is a sad phase of my career because of the lack of publicity.

However, I'm looking forward to my upcoming release Yuvan Yuvathi and the project I'm currently working on, 555. I'm sure that the producers of those films will promote me well." But the actor is not against multi-starrers in the future. "They are the route to take if Tamil cinema needs to get to the next level," he says. So, will he act with Simbu in future? "I'll have to think about it," he signs off. 'It was the producer's call'

Simbu, who is currently shooting in Mysore for Vosthi, is nonplussed about Bharath's remarks against the Vaanam team. When contacted, he says, "Firstly, promotions are the concern of the producer and I've nothing to do with it. Plus, the film is a remake and everybody knew about their on-screen portions well."

About Bharath's outburst, he says, "I'm not sure why he said that. Since the day we started the film, we've made sure that everyone got due credit. We had Saranya ma'am in some of the initial posters of the film as well. In fact, Sonia Aggarwal had tweeted that she was very happy about her role and the publicity given to her for the film."

Despite the presence of several actors, multi-starrers sometimes depend on the star value that one actor provides. Says Simbu, "Though Mankatha is a multistarrer, it's Ajith's film at the end of the day. It's obvious that his picture will be prominently displayed in the posters. Also, in the case of Nanban, though Jiiva and Srikanth feature in it, it is a given that the film belongs to Vijay and Shankar."

Will he pair up with Bharath in the future? "I've no issues with anybody, including Bharath," states the actor, "Not a lot of people know that after the film was complete and went for editing, I specifically requested editor Anthony to not cut the scenes featuring the other actors, including Bharath. I told him to trim some of my scenes and we ended up chopping three scenes featuring Santhanam and me. We faced a lot of problems during Vaanam's release and the only reason it got an opening was because of the star value in the publicity material."