South actress Meena's daughter Nainika taking baby steps in films

Actress Meena’s five-year-old daughter Nainika is making her big screen debut in the Vijay-Samantha starrer Theri. Nainika, who plays Vijay’s daughter in the movie, says she likes ‘Vijay uncle so much’.

When asked whether she knows that her mother was a sought-after child artiste of the ’80s herself, Nainika nods and smiles. Meena joins the conversation and adds, “Yes, she pretty much knows everything. In fact, I’ve shown her my pictures.”

Meena also says, “When the director approached me with the script I thought he had come with a role for me, but when he said he wanted to cast my daughter, I was initially apprehensive. But he convinced me.

Meena adds she was present on the sets from day one of the shoot. “I accompanied her to the shoot every day. I realised the importance of my daughter’s character after I heard the story, but as an actress I knew what difficulties the child would face during shooting schedules, and the team co-operated with us. Sometimes Nainika would refuse to do the same thing over and over again. Everybody was patient and they waited for her to come around. Vijay gifted a lot of things to Nainika, no wonder she became close to him,” she adds.

So, what’s next for Nainika? “I am not going to say ‘yes’ if anybody approaches me to rope in my daughter for any movie. I don’t want her to miss her childhood. Because I missed mine,” she says.