And I’ve always said the same, but somehow like some Chinese whispers type of thing, you know, it has turned into something else. I wanted to apply, like, I wanted to do a cinematography course, and I was actually preparing for the entrance exam. I’m actually glad that you asked me this, because the fact that I did a course at FTII or that I even applied for it, is not true. Do you feel different now since you’ve completed more than a decade acting to much acclaim? Also, on this point, which aspect of filmmaking is the closest to your heart and why is that so? Now then, it is imperative given these facts that you’ve had plans of making movies at some point rather than just acting in them. However, not many people know that you are a really good writer, and if our research is true, you took the cinematography course at FTII, Pune (Film and Television Institute of India) as well. You are a gifted actor and a wonderful singer, that much is known to and celebrated by the world. We had thought that it would be a one-time thing. It was not something that was pursued in the first place. So, when you ask me if it was a decision to pursue something or discontinue, it was never something that was done on purpose at all. So, as I said, all these things happened as randomly as that. But then when they met me, they thought I was more suitable to play her sister which was a slightly larger role. They felt that I had somewhat similar features to Tabu to play her younger version. Initially, they had asked me to play the younger version of Tabu.
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At some point, these French filmmakers had come down to make a movie ( The Monkey Who Knew Too Much) and they wanted someone to play Tabu’s sister. And so, the picture he took, happened to be in the ad agency. And he happened to work in an ad agency at the time. There was no plan for it.Īs it so happened, a neighbor of ours just came over one day, saw a picture of mine, and asked my mum if he could take it. So, it was never an option to take up films as a career because it was just unheard of, in our circles and within our family and all of that. I never really connected to the memory of acting as a child as well. It happened just once and so it needs to be considered non-definitive. Thus, when people are like – ‘Oh! she’s a good actress because she was a child actor’, I’d say that it wasn’t the case. And it was more like a random one-off thing that happened. I have a bit of a problem, you know, with the word child actor being used within my career because I never felt like one since I did literally one film to speak of, as a child. In this context, was it a conscious decision on your part to discontinue acting and maybe pursue something else? If thus, what then perhaps nudged you to take up roles later on? Could you tell us how it got about happening? Also, we often see that child actors usually prolong their careers taking up multiple roles until they debut themselves as actors per se. The excerpts of our conversations follow… Upon going through your Wikipedia page, we understand that you’ve been acting from the age of eight as a child actor, debuting in the film ‘The Monkey Who Knew Too Much’, back in 1998. And thus, went our conversations covering almost everything under the sun, and effectively looking back at her fascinating career thus far. She just termed it as a gift she’s received which she intends to use for doing something good. But then like any true genius, she remained humbly oblivious to it. Months turned to years, and I’d gotten to interact with Nithya Menen herself, and had strung up the courage to ask her if what my analysis of her was somewhere true. All to say, I felt that perhaps she was being held back. It was like watching Rohit Sharma, a naturally gifted batsman being asked to play defense. She was being bottled up in particularly defined roles, where she on account of her gifted talent, had no such bounds. It took me months to understand that it was her unhinged natural talent that was the reason for my frustration. So, what was it, that was making me wonder about her big breakthrough. Yes, she’s been awarded multiple honors across the industries and if commercial successes are a mark of career achievement, she’s had them too by the bunch. Yes, she’s always been touted as being a great actress on screen, by the critics and audience, alike. With Awe!, and as with many other movies which preceded that, I had left the theatre wondering as to when Nithya Menen, this incredibly talented actress, would finally get her due. Nithya Menen: An Understanding Of The Naturally Gifted…Ī couple of years back, I had the chance to ponder upon and write something about Nithya Menen, on this very platform after watching her movie Awe! (2018) which was running successfully all over at the time.