Actors working across regional film industries is no longer a novel concept, feels Roshan Mathew. The actor, who is currently shooting for writer-director Shahi Kabir’s second film, alongside Malayalam actor-filmmaker Dileesh Pothan tells us, “I think cross-pollination is fairly ordinary right now; I don’t think anybody looks at it as something exotic anymore. In a country like India, this opens up so many possibilities.”

The 32-year-old, who was last seen in director Sudhanshu Saria’s Ulajh, says the film felt different from his previous Hindi projects.

“How I was spoken about during Ulajh promotions was very different from the way I was spoken about when Darlings (2022) released. When Choked (2020; his Hindi debut) came out, almost every article read ‘This Malayalam actor is going to play the lead in Anurag Kashyap’s film’,” he says, adding, ”But with Ulajh, I loved how nonchalantly people just said ’This film stars Janhvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah and Roshan’. The qualifier — that I come from Malayalam cinema — is not essential anymore.”

While film technicians have always worked cross-industry, Mathew muses that the language barrier might have limited actors initially. “Actors have to perform in languages they don’t necessarily understand. Fortunately for me, I know Hindi and Tamil; that’s why I worked in those industries, besides Malayalam. Now, Marathi actors are doing Malayalam films and (Tamil actor) Vijay Sethupathi has done major Bollywood films. I find it all very exciting,” he beams.