Actress who went back to college after stardom, worked as assistant, then gave Rs 200 crore hits with Rajinikanth, Vijay

Malavika Mohanan made her acting debut with the 2013 Malayalam film Pattam Pole while she was still in college. In an exclusive chat with DNA, the actress recalled, “I did my first Malayalam film while I was still in college. But I didn’t work immediately after that. I did one movie and then I didn’t work for a very long time.”

Eventually, the actress decided to finish her college and then explored other career options. “I was exploring other things. I got done with college. I thought I’ll get into some other aspect of filmmaking and I was still finding what I had an interest in and what I had an aptitude for,” said Malavika.

When Malavika assisted an ad filmmaker

The actress found interest in photography among other things and decided to see if there was any future for her behind the camera. She added, “I assisted an ad filmmaker for a while. I had that whole journey and then I got back. So it doesn’t feel like 10 years because in my head, it’s not. There was a whole different life I had in between.” The actress said that the time period was a turbulent one even though it taught her a lot. “It took me a while to figure out what I want for myself and what I wanted to do. I went through an existential angst for a period, if I may put it like that,” she added.

Malavika Mohanan’s stellar box office run

After a few small roles in films, Malavika returned full time to acting with the 2019 Tamil release Petta. “It started feeling like I got into films once I started working in Tamil cinema with Petta with Rajini sir and then Master with Vijay sir,” she told us. Both Petta and Master, starring Rajinikanth and Thalapathy Vijay respectively, were huge hits, earning over Rs 200 crore. The actress is now set to make her Bollywood debut with Yudhra, opposite Siddhant Chaturvedi. She has also signed her first Telugu film – Raja Saab opposite Prabhas.

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