Actress Padmapriya on what keeps her going

It was a chance meeting with National Award winning director, Anirrudh Roy Chowdhury at a get-together that got actress Padmapriya her first Bengali film, Aparajita Tumi. While she’s acted in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films, Padmapriya’s anxiety to be accepted in a Bengali film knows no bounds — the reason: her Kolkata roots.

“My maternal grandparents and relatives are from Kolkata and half my childhood has been spent there. I’m very emotional about the city,” states the actor, adding, “As the film releases this Friday, I’m jittery — to be accepted by the people of a city I’m very emotional about is as important to me as the film.” Her character Kuhu in the film is based in San Francisco. “It wasn’t tough to portray her. Moreover, whenever I would get stuck with my lines I could switch to English. But what matters to me the most is that I dubbed for Aparajita… myself,” she informs, adding, “Kuhu is a very intelligent woman married to a not-so-intelligent man and they have two children. How she discovers herself through her strengths and weaknesses and evolves is shown in the film.”

This apart, Padmapriya has quite a few releases this year — three Malayalam and one Tamil film. “I’m a greedy actor,” she confesses, adding, “I just like to keep working and working on good films. I’ve been working for seven years now and have worked with some of the biggest names — directors, actors, technicians — in Southern films.” Living her mantra of ‘never restricting myself to one language’, Padmapriya has also worked in a couple of Hindi films. “In spite of all genres of films I’ve acted in, I love doing the typical masala films. Entertaining the audience is no easy task — how else would one explain a handful of hits amongst all the releases every year,” she says.

Her next Tamil film, Gautham Menon’s Thanga Meengal is about the educational system. Kobra, No 66 Madurai Bus and Ozhimuri — all Malayalam films — are quite a mixed bag. Padmapriya is one actor who has been blessed with awards every year but that doesn’t seem to pressurise her in any way. “I don’t like being intimidated by expectations. Awards, praises and brickbats come and go — every time I see the visuals on the screen I’m on a high,” she ends.