Sshivada makes a grand return

It’s strange but true that some of the leading heroines have had a rocky start in Mollywood ,then moved on to the greener and more lucrative pastures of Kollywood, became instant success there which was when filmmakers from Malayalam took note of them again.

Most of such actresses — like Nayantara, Amala Paul and Ineya — chose to make Tamil films their priority and came back to Malayalam only when a good script caught their eye.

The latest in the league, Sshivada Nair, had made her debut in Fazil’s Living Together, which was not a success, and then went on to do Nedunchalai in Tamil which became a hit.

Tamil offers kept her occupied in Chennai but she found the script of Ranjith Sankar’s upcoming film Su Su Sudhi Valmeekam interesting and she managed to squeeze it in between her long line of Tamil projects.

It was Ranjith’s associate Jeevan who suggested Sshivada’s name for the film after seeing her performance in Nedunchalai. “I play the role of a Bengaluru-based speech therapist Kalyani who comes to Kerala for a short stay and meets the character of Jayasurya,” Sshivada says.

The role of a speech therapist is not something to be taken lightly and Sshivada did her fair share of research for the role. “When I got the script, I immediately checked the Internet to know the work done by speech therapists and also looked at speech therapy programmes. Ranjith sir also referred me some videos,” she says.

With Jayasurya around, the shoot was all fun, Sshivada recalls. “While Ranjith sir explained the scenes to me, Jayasurya would act it out and show me. It was all fun on the sets and even though there were caravans for the stars, we all preferred to sit and have food together; it was like one big family.”  

On the difference between the two industries, Sshivada says that as opposed to Tamil, shorter time was required to finish a film in Malayalam and adds that while budgets were bigger and experimentation was the norm in Tamil, Malayalam has good scripts within the constraints of smaller budgets.

Sshivada’s kitty is full with Tamil films. “I am awaiting the release of Zero which is a supernatural thriller in which I play the role of a housewife. Also on the anvil are films like Kattam which has only three main characters and is largely shot inside a single room. I also have a project with Bobby Simhaa and two other untitled Tamil projects,” she says.