His third film, Vai Raja Vai, directed by Aishwaryaa Dhanush, is all set to hit screens and Gautham Karthik sounds confident despite his previous two films not clicking at the box office. "I would like every movie of mine to become a hit. From the lowest technician to the biggest actor, we all put our heart and soul into every project and try to ensure that the film does well at the box office. But when a movie doesn't do well, it provides us an opportunity to analyze and learn from that experience," he says and adds, "Vai Raja Vai holds the same importance as every other movie I'm doing right now and those that I have done before."

He reveals that it was the concept of the film that attracted him most to the film. "It's something out of the box, which, Tamil cinema, nowadays, is reluctant to try," he says and elaborates, "It has everything we find in a commercial movie — action, romance, comedy and all of that — but apart from that, it also has many things that have not been shown in Tamil films for a while, like casino, gambling — all these are elements of the movie, delving into the human psychology... something to do with intuition."

Interestingly, Gautham's character in the film is named Karthik. So, was that decided after he was cast? "Actually, Aishwaryaa wanted everyone to have their own original names. Since I'd already used Gautham in another movie, I thought I'll go with my surname Karthik," he explains. Karthik is a middle-class boy working as an IT professional, and the situations he is put through and how he deals with them and how he comes out winning forms the gist of the story. The actor says that he has portrayed the character a little differently. "I've usually played very flamboyant characters; in my first movie, Kadal, I was a village guy who is extrovert, uncultured, very rough and raw, and in Yennamo Yetho, I was a chirpy youngster. But for this one, I had to be more polished, more city-based, and more controlled. So, the acting style is different," he says.

But there was not much of preparation that he had to do for the role. "I did have to learn how to play the game so that it didn't look fake. But apart from a 10-minute intro into the game, there was not much," he says. He says that shooting on a cruise was a lot of fun but they couldn't explore much due to time constraints. "We were shooting at different locations on the cruise all throughout, so there was no time to even breathe easy. But I think it is an experience everyone should have because a cruise is something amazing," he says.

The actor terms working with Aishwaryaa as fun. "A lot of people think Aishu is very serious but she is actually very fun-loving and enjoys a good laugh. I think I was the only one who made her laugh a little too much on the set," he laughs. That said, he adds that Aishwaryaa commanded the set completely. "She knows what she wants and if anything happens, it happens according to her will only. Aishu is a very dedicated director," he concludes.