The tale of Abbas is a weird one. From rejecting Jeans to ending up as mascot for Harpic, he has come a long way. I feel bad for him, but luckily he has been able to stay afloat with businesses and a decent modelling career.
Trivia - Abbas and Ajith were the first choices of Shankar to play the twin-lead-role in his magnum opus Jeans. The role finally went to Prashanth, for whom it became a career-defining movie. Just let that sink in.
To cut the long story short, here is why Abbas could not survive in Tamil.
Poor screen presence - Cinema is a not for everyone and Abbas could be a prime example for that. With great looks, nice body language and decent acting ability, Abbas should have been a huge draw. Unfortunately, he had a very poor screen presence. Despite all the above, you were never quite drawn to his roles. Save Minnale, Kaadhal Desam and maybe Thiruttu Payale, his roles were forgettable.
Cut, Copy Paste - Here is a fun activity. Lets cut Abbas’s entire role from VIP/Kaadhal Desam/Anandham and paste it to his cameo in Padayappa. What was that? You couldn’t see any difference? My point exactly. He did not improve over a very long period. Compare Suriya’s ‘Naerukku Naer’ with ‘Nanda’ and you will see what I mean.
Poor movie choices - I felt Abbas signed too many multi-hero subjects. In many films I felt it worked for the other hero. His first 3–4 years were filled with movies where he shared screen with much bigger stars. A classic example is Kandukondein kandukondein where he was utterly dwarfed by Mammotty and Ajith, despite a pretty decent performance. The only individual movie he did during this period (poochudava) flopped big time.
Big names, Big directors - A telling sign of an actor’s career graph is their treatment at the hands of big directors - Vincent Selva, Linguswamy, KS Ravikumar, Rajeev Menon, Mouli - none of them called Abbas again for their future projects. Not a very good sign. It could be just coincidence, but if big names don’t remember you, it is very bad news in a competitive industry. Even worse if their assistants too don’t.
Voice - Abbas had a huge advantage in his early career. His expressions, limited acting and overall presence were boosted by his voice. Not his own, but the one dubbed over by Vikram. Like Mohan, Abbas was very much dependent on dubbing. This would eventually lead to his downfall.
No mass element whatsoever - Onset of the mass era in the 2000s sunk a lot of heroes. When heroes like Prashanth, Parthiban, Murali and Vignesh found it hard - Abbas was, but simply a rabbit caught in headlights.
Rich boy looks - I feel heroes who look like upper-class boys have a hard time being accepted. This is a disputed point. When I wrote about Sidharth many commenters pointed out that this may not be applicable to everyone since Ajith is still surviving. Ajith is the same breed, but a different animal. Hard to explain, but folks like Abbas are not even on the same league as Ajith.
