Dhruv Vikram has been on cloud nine ever since the release of his sports drama Bison, directed by Mari Selvaraj. The film has been doing exceptionally well at the box office despite heavy competition from Pradeep Ranganathan’s Dude. Bison sees Dhruv play a kabaddi player from a remote hamlet in Tamil Nadu, who fails to get a fair chance because of his caste and societal status. The film is Mari Selvaraj’s first collaboration with Dhruv Vikram, who had earlier appeared in films like Adithya Varma and Mahaan, where he shared screen with his superstar father Vikram.
The actor, on being asked whether the intense physical aspect of dedicating himself to a part attracted him to Bison, Dhruv said, “That was not what drew me to it. What drew me to it was Mari sir. He wanted to make this film, and he thought I would be right for the character. That was like the biggest opportunity I could ever have in my life. These things I was very nervous about. Not the injuries, but I knew that kabaddi was a very violent and aggressive sport. I have never played a sport in my life other than kabaddi for this movie. So that was not the aspect that drew me to this movie.
One asked about his familiarity with the work of Mari Selvaraj and how the film feels like a spiritual predecessor to his earlier film Karnan, and his politics as a filmmaker, Dhruv responds, “I had watched everything he had made before. Before I even knew I was gonna work with him, I had seen his work. I obviously saw Pariyerum Perumal, and we first met when he was about to start making Karnan. But the life I have lived earlier and the life I got to watch first hand while making this film are totally different. I was able to understand what the social fabric is like over there and how it still impacts people till today.” Dhruv added. “ It is almost a matter of fact that these things still happen. Some people live with being discriminated against daily. These are the lessons I learned on the job after I started to work with Mari, sir.”
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Dhruv Vikram also has his take on the subversion in the use of violence and heroism in Bison as opposed to other films coming out today, “The way we shot these fight scenes never made me feel liberated or like I wanted to escape. This is the nature of how these shoots would go. The fighters who were fighting me and acting with me never felt like they were hitting me. It was not heroic. There was no room for a slow-motion shot where I walked out in swag. That would have felt annoying. This time it didn’t feel like that.”
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