Ajith Kumar

If you look at it closely, 'Mankatha' is a politically incorrect film. It explores the darker side of the human mind, and I think, while watching it, people are, in a sense, redeeming themselves of their own guilt.

Success is very intoxicating. It is very difficult to handle all the fame and adulation. It corrupts you. You start to believe that everybody around you is in awe of you, that everybody wants you, and that everybody is thinking of you all the time.

Honeymoons are great, but they don't last. And I think the same is true with success on the screen - today, I am all over the place; tomorrow, I may be gone - I may have to make room for someone else. So why make a big song and dance about it all?

I don't want the child in me to die. Fortunately, I'm lucky enough that my profession allows me to pursue my boyhood fantasies even as an adult.

I like to work with people who want to make films because they are passionate about films and not because they want to sell films and make money. I am not for people who get the most saleable actor and then the most saleable director and sell the film.

Filmmaking, I often like to say, is like Russian roulette. You never know what you'll get. The only thing you can do is find solace in the fact that, irrespective of the film's response, you work hard to make the money you do.

I don't work for the commercial success of the film. I work to satisfy my producers who give me the money. I work to satisfy the director who has written a script for me. Of course, I have to satisfy the actor in me, but I want to satisfy them first.

I rarely give interviews. I am against doing television interviews or chatting on the Net, even to promote my films. This is my personal decision, and it is not to hurt or embarrass anybody.