The Malayalam actor, known for ‘Helen’, ‘Kumbalangi Nights’, and ‘Kalki’, on the minimal approach to her character in ‘Kottukkaali’, interacting with the locals, and more.
Edited excerpts:
Takeaways from the Kottukkaali shooting experience
Madurai is not so far from where I am. But the world is so different. That was a big learning for me. The kind of people there, the kind of love and passion they have, not just in cinema but the things they do in their regular lives… they are very intense people: extreme love and violence in one package. That was just so much for me. The kind of things they struggle with on a daily basis — it is unimaginable. I’ve never seen people live through things that I’ve seen there. And they all do it with such a big smile and big heart, and that was personally something that affected me. I’m still in touch with all the people there. I talk to them, they call me… They are not related to movies at all. They are very simple people and they do not know what they are doing actually, in terms of acting. They don’t understand the bigness of the film because the things that Kottukkaali does and its ideas are big.
Minimal language
One very interesting thing about the film is I don’t have many dialogues. That’s the first thing the director (PS Vinothraj) told me, because I was very nervous. It’s a very rooted film. When he narrated the story, he told me not to worry and said I basically have two lines, which I thought was a good thing. Interestingly enough, once I went there nobody speaks anything about Tamil. I was automatically learning the language — I did know a little bit, but not to the extent of how they speak and how they communicate. But I got to learn the language much better. I think it was a big win for me to learn that language at that point.
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