Pasan Ranaweera - The man who is not ‘eternally suffering’

Those who don’t know Pasan Ranaweera, might wonder “What on earth he was thinking to opt for a hairdo like that” or probably might wonder if he thinks he is living in the 60s or 70s. WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT JUDGE PEOPLE!

Pasan who is most famous for playing the role of “Cyril Nithramasuffering” in Feroze Kamardeen’s hit political farce “Pusswedilla” sat down with Life Online to speak about the side of him that many people do not know.

Grooming years

School is said to be the place where you come to face situations that either make you or break you. Pasan says, “You generally don’t have a choice. You are forced to do things that you most certainly do not want to do or don’t know how to do, for example you are just put onstage and asked to act.” However his desire for acting came about during O-Levels and A-Levels (Not the greatest time to be getting involved in extra-curricular activities parents would say).

Pasan’s mother used to always take him to watch plays since he was a kid, the reality of the fact that he would like nothing better than to be on stage hit him whilst watching “The Lion King” at the Lionel Wendt by “The Workshop Players.” Watching the actor who played Simba perform inspired him to come out of his shell. Other inspiration was drawn from watching movies in which children would play lead roles.

Having the option to choose drama as a subject for A-levels at Royal College, he had the good fortune of studying under Rathna Lalani Jayakody. He says, at Royal, they were not just taught the theory behind it, instead he had to be part of workshops and that helped him a lot to develop his acting skills.

Following his A-levels he wanted to be a part of a production and heard about Feroze Kamardeen pulling off “Hamlet at Elsies Bar.” Pasan says he got in touch with Feroze through Facebook and asked if he could be a part of the backstage crew. Feroze questioned if he could sing and having replied with a held back “yes” he was included in the cast and from then on he kept building contacts and showing up for role calls.

In between acting he engages in voicing commercials, dubbing, and photography. He also likes to go for rehearsals of productions and help out and also watch rehearsals of productions that his friends are a part of because he learns a lot from watching people work.

On his roles…

When questioned about his most challenging role, Pasan says, “Every role is a challenge and pushes you to the limit,” however he says “the role of Gabriel which I played in After Class directed by Ruvin de Silva and written by Jithendra Seneviratne is a role that I still think about.”

Speaking on how he landed his most Iconic Role “Cyril Nitharamasuffering” Pasan says “I watched the first Pusswedilla and then when I heard Feroze was doing part two, I called and asked if I could audition. Feroze said I could audition and that gave me an opening to play a minor role and gold struck when the actor playing the role of Cyril couldn’t make it and Feroze asked me to step in.”

Speaking about getting into character, Pasan says it is easier to get into  “Cyril mode” now that he has done the play a couple of times. He also appreciates the fact that Feroze lets the actors improvise around the script. He adds that sometimes other actors including himself add in a “few surprise lines on stage.”

“The most straining of the 4 plays has to be the last one which was more physically demanding but my favourite script was Part 3,” says Pasan.

Looking ahead

Speaking about his future plans, the next big production he is a part of, will be Jesus Christ Superstar with The Workshop Players directed by Jerome De Silva where he will be one of the actors playing the role of Simon Zealot. He also speaks about plans to enter Sinhala Theatre and also study acting abroad.

Offstage, Pasan is very close to his friends and has no issues saying the nastiest of things to them because it is all in good fun, and all in all he is a fantastic person to have around.

By Reihan Stephen

Pics by Nisal Baduge

Show pics courtesy: Pradeep Dilrukshana

Rehearsal pics courtesy: Andre Perera