Lakshmi Devy: On being a heroine and a screenplay writer
Lakshmi Devy speaks to DC about her plans to move from being in front of the camera to behind it
By : s subhakeerthana
Update: 2015-08-15 00:35 GMT
It’s not often you get to see an actress penning the screenplay of the movie that she’s a part of. That too, as the female lead! Lakshmi Devy is excited about her ‘dual role’ in the Bobby Simha-starrer Masala Padam. “Writing a screenplay is no joke and is more challenging than any other form of writing. But I have always been interested in poetry and short story writing. In fact, my dad is a Kerala-based travelogue writer. Maybe writing is in my genes,” laughs Lakshmi.
Ask her which she enjoys more — being a heroine, or writing a screenplay? She answers that acting is her passion and writing is her interest. “The film’s producer Vijay Raghavendar, its director and cinematographer Laxman of Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu fame and I have been good friends, and we thought why not make a film together? That’s how it happened,” recalls Lakshmi. She says that the film revolves around how people judge movies, and how everybody is really a critic.
“The film tries to present a director’s innovative take on the ‘masala’ genre. Each character in the film represents a major element of a masala movie, such as —comedy, action, sentiment and romance, which will be a major draw with family audiences,” she adds.
Lakshmi says she’s here to learn, and every aspect of filmmaking excites her. “The number of films that I do doesn’t matter, but the kind of roles I do does,” she clarifies. Lakshmi wants to take it slow, and she has started to pen a horror movie as well. The actress surprises us when she says she spends most of her time writing because that interests her more. “I would also love to assist Mani Ratnam, Balki or Alphonse Putharen and learn the nuances of filmmaking. Maybe, after a decade or so, I might even direct films,” she signs off.