Actor R Madhavan who was last seen in ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’, is now promoting his upcoming film ‘GDN’. During the promotions, the actor has expressed concern that younger audiences, including his 20-year-old son Vedaant’s generation, are increasingly disconnected from Indian cinema and are showing greater interest in Japanese anime and Korean content.Madhavan said the Indian film industry is not losing viewers to another film industry but to an entirely different storytelling landscape. “I’ve got one fear I don’t even want to think about. For sure, until now, I’ve earned his respect. Now he’s 20 years old. But if you look at my younger generation, they’re totally disconnected from him,” Madhavan said, referring to himself in the third person. “It’s a big problem. They’re watching Japanese anime, they’re watching Korean content. But they don’t even want to watch our Tamil movies. They won’t go to the theatre to watch Hindi movies or Indian movies either,” he said in an interview with Cinema Express. The actor admitted that he could have easily continued making conventional commercial films, which he believes would guarantee a certain level of success. However, he said he wanted to explore roles that allowed him to showcase the depth of his craft. “I believe if I make a commercial film, it’s sure to have at least one hit. Just having that formula is enough to keep us going for many years,” he said.Explaining his choice to take on more challenging projects, Madhavan added, “With all the experiences I’ve had in my life, we can’t really fit them into one movie. That’s what acting is all about. But I never got a chance to really show the depth and quality that acting demands. Then, when that kind of opportunity finally came, I decided that just doing some usual commercial film isn’t something I can do.”Madhavan also said that the responsibility of creating meaningful and inspiring cinema lies with filmmakers and performers themselves. “What’s happening in Tamil Nadu is happening all over the world. How empowered are our people? How aware are they? But beyond that, how inspirational are we when we come forward? A storyteller, a director, or an actor, how inspirational are we really?” he said.His upcoming film ‘GDN’ tells the story of Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu, the self-taught inventor and industrialist from Coimbatore who is often referred to as the Edison of India. Despite having no formal engineering education, Naidu developed India’s first electric motor and attempted to build a car comparable to a Mercedes in pre-independence Tamil Nadu.
