People give up on marriages too easily now, that's rubbish: Madhavan

One of Tamil cinema’s most popular romantic hero, R Madhavan or Maddy, seems to be a strong believer in the institution of marriage. In a recent interview, Madhavan, who will be seen in a Netflix series, ‘Decoupled’ from December 17, lamented that people give up on marriages “a little too easily” these days.

In ‘Decoupled’, Madhavan and Surveen Chawla (of ‘Parched’ and ‘Sacred Games’ fame) play a Gurgaon couple with a young daughter trying to navigate divorce. Commenting on whether couples should stay together because of their child, he told a lifestyle and food platform, Curly Tales, “People give up on marriages too easily these days. That is rubbish, it is only after you walk out of the marriage you realise how much you have given up.”

The 51-year-old actor was categorical about people staying in their marriages and quoted a line from the series that “you need to look at your partner not from up close but from a distance and then you know why you liked the person in the first place”. In ‘Decoupled’, Madhavan plays the character of Arya, a sarcastic, outspoken pulp-fiction writer who suffers from an “uncompromised sense of objectivity and clarity”, along with a determination to never compromise.

His wife is the calm, composed CEO-wife Shruti, who decides to end their marriage. Although, they decide it is time to part ways, the two find unexpected chemistry as they hilariously navigate through their issues, and juggle the constant question of – should they or shouldn’t they be together.

Madhavan, who has often played the madly-in-love hero who would go to great lengths to win his love, is keen to do “age-appropriate” romantic stories now.

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Earlier too, he had tried to shake off his chocolate-box hero image by working in films like ‘3 Idiots’ and the boxing drama, ‘Irudhi Suttru’. He was also one of the first heroes to sign up for an OTT platform series with the thriller ‘Breathe’. The actor, who is also ready with his first directorial, ‘Rocketry: Nambi Effect’, revealed that his parents wanted him to become an engineer at first.

In his interview with Curly Tales, he reveals how his real life resembled the scene from ‘3 Idiots’ when the father (Parikshit Sahani) breaks down when he learns that his son doesn’t want to be an engineeer. Madhavan’s real life parents too wanted him to be an engineer and work for the Tatas (his father was a manager in Tata Steel in Jamshedpur where Madhavan had grown up). But, the young Madhavan knew earlier on his life that he did not want a “routine life” and did not want to do the same thing for 30 years in a row like his father did with a great amount of ease.

“That was not me,” said Madhavan. He remembers only too well that his father was “disappointed, distraught and dismayed”. His father was driven to tears and he told Madhavan that he wondered what he had done wrong with him

“I never forgot that, but I remember telling him that I don’t know what I want to be appa, but I do know I don’t want to be an engineer doing the same job. He was stunned, that day he knew I would take care of myself and that I was a survivor,” he recounted. Later, when Mani Ratnam called him and he did his first film with him, his parents knew that this was not going to be a normal life for their son. It was a challenge for them to cope with it, remembered Madhavan.

But after his first film, ‘Alaiyapayuthe’ was a super success, Madhavan turned into superstar overnight. That may have served as a balm on his parents’ wound!