S Jayakumar’s Blue Star takes us over 20 years into the past and into the world of Arakkonam to tell us stories of resillience, oppression and lots of cricket. Ashok Selvan, who plays one of the leads in the film, tells us that shooting the film almost felt like stepping back in time and travelling to another world.
“As an actor, a role needs to inspire you for you to wake up in the morning and go to set. We were on fire during the filming of Blue Star. It felt like we travelled to another world. We lived in the world of Arakkonam and came back. That’s how I look at it.” The film, which co-stars Shanthnu, Keerthi Pandian and Prithvi Rajan, among others, tells the story of two cricket captains in Arakkonam and how caste-politics impact their lives. While Ashok Selvan has done his fair share of underrated small films, he still believes the commercial success of a film is very important.
“When people are finding and enjoying some of my earlier films today, it does make me happy. But if I would’ve gotten this response then, I would’ve made ambitious films consequently. But in this journey, I have developed a better understanding of how to balance commercial success and the films I like, especially after Por Thozhil.” And Blue Star fits perfectly into this zone, according to the actor. The actor has had a history of working with many debutants in his careers, as early as his first starring role in Pizza:II (2013) to his latest hit Por Thozhil (2023). While the process is a gamble, reading a film’s script is all that one needs to know about a filmmaker, he explains.