Entertainment
‘Vishwaroopam 2’ will showcase my range as actor: Ananth Mahadevan
Chennai: Actor-filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan, whose performance in Kamal Haasan-starrer Tamil drama “Papanasam” impressed critics and audiences alike, says his role in upcoming thriller “Vishwaroopam 2” will prove his versatility.
“Post the release of ‘Papanasam’, everybody has been asking me if I’ll do more Tamil films. I’d love to but I’m eagerly looking forward to the release of ‘Vishwaroopam 2’, in which I play a character with grey shades. It will showcase my range as an actor,” Mahadevan told.
“These two roles are two extremes. In ‘Vishwaroopam 2’, I play a sly, conniving bureaucrat, whereas in ‘Papanasam’, I’m the father who doesn’t know where to look for his missing son. I want audiences to see the different kind of roles I can portray,” he said.
Known for his work predominantly in Bollywood, Ananth thanks Kamal for introducing him in southern cinema.
“Kamal is totally responsible for this. Post ‘Vishwaroopam 2’, he had even offered me a role in ‘Uttama Villain’, which I couldn’t take up because I was busy with another project. And even when ‘Papanasam’ was offered, I was busy but they were kind enough to adjust the dates for me,” he said.
Though “Vishwaroopam 2” was his southern debut, Ananth almost did Mani Ratnam’s “Thiruda Thiruda”.
“I was signed for the project. They even got my costumes ready, but I don’t know why I was replaced by S.P. Balasubrahmanyam at the last minute. Since then, whenever I’ve met Ratnam, I assured him I’m not a bad actor. I hope he watches ‘Papanasam’,” he said.
His performance in Jeethu Joseph-directed “Papanasam”, a remake of Malayalam blockbuster “Drishyam”, has been getting rave reviews.
Some even said he matched Kamal’s performance in the climax, which has won Ananth a lot of appreciation from Tamil audiences on social media.
“I’d be lying if I say I’m not on cloud nine. I worked extremely hard for that scene and started preparing my lines even before we started shooting,” said Ananth, who doesn’t like to be prompted dialogues on sets.
“I was hell bent that I’d not take prompting on the sets. In fact, when my co-stars were being prompted by the assistant directors, I was very disturbed because it was eating into my concentration and focus. Prompting is like going to a church where you’re made to repeat everything the pastor says,” he said.
But Ananth doesn’t like to take full credit for the climax scene and says it was a collaborative effort with Kamal.
“Having an actor like Kamal Haasan in front, emoting in front of him actually helped me. We mutually helped each other to get the best out of us for the scene. If people have felt both matched each other’s performance, I think it’s because of the wavelength we share,” he said.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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