I know him for more than 12 years ever since he was working for KS Ravikumar. I like all his movies, especially Bharathi Kannamma, Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirundu. In my opinion, Thavamai Thavamirundu is one of his greatest achievements. I think Cheran is a very important director of our times. Our friendship was only professional and he always tells me his opinion about my movies. But after he started working for Moondru Per, Moondru Kaadhal, I realized what a darling he is. He’s a director’s actor and he understands my creative decisions. He was a pleasure to work with.

To teach your actors, you need to be a good actor. If I can teach my actors that’s because of what I learnt when I was with Balachander. If you enjoyed the performances of Nagesh, Kamal, Rajini and Saritha, it means you have enjoyed Balachander’s acting. He’s behind their acting skills. But these days things are different. You don’t have to put in that much effort to act. You just have to behave; acting is behaving as the character does these days. Still, it helps if you can guide your actors to perform their roles.