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Kamal Haasan: From One To Ten
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 It's been for decades that Kamal Haasan's been portraying one memorable character after another, moving on to 'two' in films like Mayor Saab and three (a father and two sons) in Apoorva Sahodaragal . It was perhaps time to travel hitherto-uncharted ground for a much-emulated actor, and so Kamal Haasan now eclipses the 9 roles that Sivaji Ganesan portrayed in Navaratri (and Sanjeev Kumar did in the Hindi remake Naya Din Nayi Raat ) in his newest film Dasavatharam in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, in which he dons 10 roles.
Kamal Haasan admits that his starting point was more his icon's film rather than the mythological base the title suggests, of the ten avtaars of Lord Vishnu. This of course fits into the actor's almost consistent quest for reinvention and innovation in the characters he does and the film genres he has kept exploring, especially after the mid-'80s phase of his four-decade career. Pushpak (the silent film), Apoorva Sahodaragal, Indian, Avvai Shanmukhi (remade by him in Hindi as Chachi 420), Abhay and so on suggest an actor who still thirsts after fresh histrionic zones.
 'The idea for the film came in a flash,' he reveals with one of his all-too-frequent smiles. 'But the execution was a different story. It took more than a month of pre-production shoots just to check the feasibility of the project vis-à-vis the make-up and the photography.' For this, the actor spent time with his American make-up artiste Michael Westmore (with whom he had done Indian and Avvai Shanmukhi earlier) and the cinematographer. 'Only after this did I complete the script,' says the actor, who has written the story and screenplay besides the Tamil dialogues.
The story of the film starts in the USA with biochemical warfare as the base and traverses countries as well as centuries. The ten roles essayed by Kamal include that of a Daler Mehndi look-alike, a Hindu priest and a scientist!
Kamal admits that the make-up-oriented roles that he loves to do inspire the actor in him to go deeper into the character. But with classic performances also in films like Ek Duuje Ke Liye, Sadma (and its Tamil original Moondram Pirai) as well as Saagar, Kamal isn't handicapped when his on-screen characters look like the real Kamal Haasan. 'It's like this. My next film Marmayogi has me playing a priest. The beard I have grown is all mine, and it's not only for the character!'
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