Suggested Topics :
Suriya’s 10 Best Performances, Ranked
Ahead of the release of Kanguva, THR India ranks the actor’s finest performances.
Would it be wrong to call Suriya Tamil cinema’s most “invisible” actor? It’s not because he hasn’t had a theatrical release in years or because he (and his fans) are comparatively inactive on social media. Nor is he invisible in the sense that we hardly see him on TV anymore, either in advertisements or in his role as host of superhit quiz shows.
He’s “invisible” because his acting is noticeable, but only in hindsight. He’s not like his idol Kamal Haasan, or his contemporaries Vikram and Dhanush, all great actors with high-voltage scenes designed to immediately impress. In contrast, Suriya’s acting is harder to spot, but easier to feel.
Some of his best roles create the impression that even you can do what he’s doing. But the truth is that we’ve had many actors trying to underplay the way he does, but with less than half his impact. Maybe it’s got to do with his eyes, always hiding something, even when his face has stories to tell. The same eyes hold nothing back each time he gets even slightly emotional.
The films, the music, the directors, the images — everything that defines the 2000s has, in some way, a Suriya connection. Despite a series of middling films in the next decade, the actor returned with strong performances in even stronger films like Jai Bhim (2021) and Soorarai Pottru (2020).
Not that anyone doubted his inevitable return. He is, after all, the man half the boys in Tamil Nadu (and Kerala*) wanted to grow up to become. What could be more proof of this than multiple guitar lessons, red striped t-shirts and that fancy-store ‘Kada’ in your cupboard?
Before the release of Kanguva, Siva’s historical action drama set across seven centuries, let’s look back at the journey that made him this beloved actor, even before the ‘Pan-India’ phenomenon became a thing:
Mounam Pesiyadhe (2002)
Trust director Ameer to discover an aspect to an actor that not many before, and not many after, were able to see. Suriya in Mounam Pesiyadhe and his brother Karthi in Paruthiveeran (2007), displayed shades to their personality that were evident even in their recent films. Suriya, by then, had already worked with Ameer’s guru Bala in Nanda, but there’s an obvious difference to his Mounam performance. Playing the emotionally distant Gowtham, it may have been easy for him to do a complete U-turn once he fell in love with Sandhya (Trisha). But he tried to keep Gowtham just as confined and restrictive, as though he was holding back all those emotions. This created a distinct character, one who embodied the emotional tension required to hold the film in place.
Aaytha Ezhuthu (2004)
As one of six protagonists in Mani Ratnam’s Aaytha Ezhuthu (Yuva in Hindi), Suriya was chosen for arguably the most loaded role. Based on real-life activist George Reddy, he played Michael Vasanth with so much charisma that we never doubted why he was able to spur so many students into political action. He was soft, gentle and charming as the boyfriend, but tough and relentless when had to take on the brutal Selvanayagam (Bharathiraja). The manner in which he smilingly, respectfully delivered one of our cinema’s finest mass scenes, without a single word, made it the stuff of legend.
Pithamagan (2003)
Compared to Vikram’s Chithan, Suriya’s Sakthi has no quirks, flaws or eccentricities that could make him a complex or memorable character. Yet our feelings for Sakthi are the very reason why this film is so tough to revisit. Compared to his films until then, this conman was loud, reckless and honestly, a bit tough to get used to. But once you did, there was not much left to do but wait until that sledgehammer of an ending destroyed you.
Soorarai Pottru (2020)
It’s to this actor’s credit that his National Award-winning performance comes up so early on in this ranking. He’s earnest, like he’s always been while playing the go-for-broke businessman type, but there’s also a darker layer of madness that keeps him going. It’s in moments like when he argues with his wife Bommi that you see a man who has lost control of himself. In moments of weakness, like when he borrows money from Bommi or as he begs strangers to be able to afford a fight ticket back home, you feel his vulnerability in your gut. The fact that we never got to see this on the big screen will remain a lifelong regret.
Vikram (2022)
In terms of screentime-to-impact ratio, it’s impossible to think of any other cameo in any other film that comes close to what Rolex does in Vikram. All he got was under 10 minutes , shot in half a day. Even then, we saw Rolex break every stereotype we imagined for a Suriya character. Until then, we assumed that there were limits to how mean he could be. He is, after all, a superstar whose persona was built around the much-loved boy-next-door image. But the moment he beheaded that poor man, backed by Anirudh’s booming score, we knew he was also chopping off our notions of him being a limited actor.
Ghajini (2005)
Despite the remake’s far better ending and overall technical superiority, it’s next to impossible for someone who has seen the original to picture anyone but Suriya as the retrograde amnesia-afflicted Sanjay. It is arguably THE film that made him a superstar, in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, and AR Murugadoss, the hottest big-ticket director. Twenty years on, it’s remembered more as a tragic love-triangle romance than for its gimmicky action sequences. His character got just a page of dialogue. Joy, pain, anger and heartbreak, all needed to be expressed through physicality alone for a character that was as much beauty as he was beast.
Singham (2010)
When most superstars carve entire careers out of playing variations of the same police officer, Suriya gave us two diametrically opposite cop characters . In Hari’s Singham, he co-created an over-the-top cop who could easily have become too extreme to be worth rooting for. He pulled off ridiculous punchlines about his 1.5-tonne punches without making you cringe. Everything in the film, including songs like “Stole My Heart”, was pitched to the loudest, most preposterous setting, but if there was one film that proved he could pull off massy as well as he could be classy, it was this.
Kaakha Kaakha (2003)
The other iconic police character in his filmography. As Anbuselvan IPS, this Gautham Menon film redefined not just the idea of a police officer as a hero but also the many rules of this sub-genre. Earnest and committed, Anbuselvan comes closest to the person we’d imagine Suriya to be like in reality. The film inspired hundreds to join the police force, with every scene and dialogue achieving cult status. This understated gem, in which a rowdy man throws a beaker of acid at Anbuselvan, became the scene of the year and it looked like he didn’t even have to do much. The fact that Anbuselvan and Singham’s Duraisingam feel like two completely different characters is another testament to Suriya’s talent.
Ayan (2009)
We may have seen variations of, or sequels to, a lot of his most beloved characters, but if there’s one performance we’ve missed out on, it has to be Deva (get the Thalapathy reference?) from KV Anand’s Ayan. It’s a film loaded with so much of everything that we forget how Suriya was once one of our biggest entertainers. He was allowed to make mistakes, engage in seedy business deals, play dress-up, fall in love and emerge loveable at the end of it all. Back then, he didn’t have the weight of entire farming communities and villages upon his shoulders. Having fun was the only rule he used to follow before he was forced into self-righteous saviour roles. It’s this Suriya we miss most.
Vaaranam Aayiram (2008)
The full force of Suriya’s ‘invisibility’ is evident in his second film with Gautham Vasudev Menon. He played both father and son, but if you looked closer, you could see an entire life’s worth of transformations within the son character. The film was an extreme take on a coming-of-age story, from school to young love, then heartbreak and death. The transitions were epic, back when de-aging had more to do with the craft of an actor than that of an imported technology. We laughed, we loved, we cried, all through a film that completely deserved the full potential of an actor like Suriya.
Special mentions: Jai Bhim (2021) and 24 (2016).