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Art for people's sake
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Answer: Evaluation of one's creative work is a pleasure common to all artistes; to feel and be overjoyed in common is great. I have a vision; think before I leap. I choose my role and perform to the satisfaction of the director and others in the team.
My life in cinema started with Bawaduka. Since then and beginning with that, I have repeatedly won awards for my performance in the seven films I acted. Therefore I am quite happy that I have been correct in selecting my roles in films.
Q : You are the only actor in the country who had won the best actor award at the three forms of audio-visual art, cinema, drama and tele-drama. How do you explain the subtle differences you experienced when adopting yourself to each of these three forms of art?
A: All these performances have a common element. the fundamentals are the same. It can be an expression or an imitation. The difference is only in the use of technology which when applied is reflected differently in each of these different fields.
On proscenium stage, the actor contacts the audience direct. In the case of cinema and television, he reaches them through the lense. Television is much closer to the viewer than cinema. However, cinema carves a greater personality for an actor.
Overacting is some-what peculiar to Sri Lanka. Poor structural conditions in our theatre-halls, have created this myth of overacting for stage. It is not so in European theatre. Overacting on stage is not acting. It must be natural as in cinema.
Rare species
Q : Our versatile actor Gamini Fonseka had said that an actor should be able to perform any character. You have excelled in acting, dancing music and vocals. How do you react to this statement?
A: I consider Gamini and Joe as our father-actors. The actor is an instrument of expression. To the extent its range is limited, it is easier for the director. The actors are a rare species of beings. if the range is narrow, the actor's performance or the character will be incomplete. Acting is an expression that employes the entire body, and it cannot be broken into portions.
Q : This year you were the leading actor in two good films Randiya Dahara and Sooriya Arana. How do you explain your ingress into these two different characters?
A: A character is no challenge for me. Acting is a creation. Ability and desire must be there for one to perform well. These two characters are different from each other. Sediris is a hunter holding sway over the forest. Lionel is a thug of the lumpen class holding sway over civil life. In other words, both of them are hunters in two different environments.
Q : In your career in acting how do you evaluate your performance as Lionel in Randiya Dahara in comparison with other characters into which you breathed life?
A: Technology in cinema is such that it could penetrate the human mind indepth. Lionel too is a part of that technology.
Comparatively Lionel takes much less screen time; but the impact created runs deep into the plot. Some are supposed to be born villains; but, they too are men with emotions. The sub-text in the film brings out those rare emotions in a villain. I think I succeeded in getting it out of Lionel and that is why the audience is finally sympathetic to him.
Flesh and blood
Q : If someone says that in Ran Diya Dahara your performance was restricted merely to carry out the dictates of the director what is your answer to it?
A: It is not the question whether Lionel was to do what he was asked to do; but,he was an actor who did what he was not asked to do. The script in this film did not demand sympathy for Lionel. He is such a rogue. I filled it with flesh and blood.
The actor is the Attorney-at-Law of the character given to him. He reasons out to plead why he should be pardoned. I breathed a new life into the character which was not written into the conceptual content.
Q : Marlon Brando says, "Actor is a guy who if you are not talking about him, is not listening." What is your opinion about it?
A: That means to talk about him not as a person but as an actor. It means to discuss about the characters he had acted out which not only amounts to an appreciation of his performance but also a recognition of his contribution. A character in a film is a child born out of wedlock between the actor and the director.
So what Brando talked about has great depth in understanding cinema and evaluation of an artist. Art is to see, listen or read, and then invariably to talk about.
Q : According to Victor Cousin art is for art's sake. What is your opinion about this oft-quoted statement?
A: This statement was made at a time in a place where there was prosperity. Every social, political and economic entity should foster arts in a country. Kotte period in our history, is one such era in which arts prospered. Cousin's statement hardly or never applies to the Third World.
Therefore, art should be for the people as well. When a particular society is socially and economically poor, it begs and demands something for them from arts too. That is reality within which Cousins saying takes a back seat.
Popularity
Q: Oscar Wilde says that art should not seek popularity. Looking at your life in art, you have proved that what he says is correct. Did you do it knowingly or unknowingly?
A: I did it quite knowingly. As a kid I loved to be popular. For one to be popular, one has to sacrifice a lot in life and bring about a change in life pattern too. Art itself should not try to be popular. One can become popular within a day.
Similarly, another person may take years to become popular. We have no proper understanding of what popularity means. One should not make a deliberate effort to become popular. It comes to you automatically depending on what you achieve.
Q: There is beauty in everything in life. All cannot, however, see this beauty. As an artist, can you explain the meaning of this through your performances?
A: Beauty and monstrosity are two words expressing two extremes. So they are only relative terms. Beauty is the reflection of human compassion. Then what it reflects is beautiful. Anyone that exudes compassion is beautiful. There is a difference between beauty and aesthetic beauty.
Aesthetic beauty is a necessity in life. There is depth in it and hence art is nothing but aesthetic beauty. Physical beauty is necessary to project acting beauty.
Q: How did you take to art and how did you reach excellence in acting?
A: I am a born artiste (actor). I was used to creative acting from my very childhood. I used to sing, dance and act when I was a child. I reached maturity in my art of acting with my performance in Marasaad. Then I turned out to be an accomplished actor with my performance in Kadulla (teledrama) and in the film Bhava Duka.
In performing these different characters I learned how to look at life and developed the art of reacting instinctively. My direct entry to art is through the university plays.
Q: As an accomplished actor what advice have you to give to the youngsters who are taking to acting?
A: My advice to them is that even if there is no training institute to learn arts, we have no option but to learn it. We have to study the world as it is, and perceive the art of learning by institution. We have to learn why do people cry, laugh or scream. One should be able to learn from the social environment in which one lives in order to portray life.
Q: What can you say about the future of Sinhala cinema and theatre?
A: Both these forms of art are where the future of the society lies. Art is an integral part of the culture. Our culture is being subjected to intense questioning.
The birth of a new culture, imminent in our country, is foreshadowed by an unnecessary fear. We note a bleak future for art. Of the two arts the theatre is to suffer most, which is now almost abandoned.
It is now reduced to a dependant art resting on the hands of youngsters. There is no room for theatre in our life now.
In contrast, cinema has reached a certain height. On the other hand, television productions have become socially unrealistic and unproductive.
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