Donning a serial role: Avanthika Mohan

On the other end, actress Avanthika Mohan sounds tired. She was not keeping well and was taking rest for a few days. Within a day, she has to fly back to Hyderabad for the shooting of her Telugu series Raja Rani.  Alongside the Telugu one, she acts in a Malayalam serial Athmasakhi telecast in Mazhavil Manorama. In both, she plays the female lead, poles apart from each other.

“In Raja Rani, I play a village woman who is a school teacher, whereas, in Athmasakhi, I play a modern character Dr Nanditha. The only common factor between the two is that they are educated,” says Avanthika, who forayed into the mini screen from the big screen. It is the ‘variety of roles’ in serials that lured her towards the industry. “I moved to the mini screen as I felt that my acting prowess was not portrayed well on big screen,” she says.

“In terms of acting, serials provide a lot of opportunities to experiment with. We could explore different emotions. I had received some offers from serials during the initial stage of my career. Then, I didn’t want to take up them as there was a talk that actors committing to serials would not get a good entry in movies. Now, that trend is gone. I feel very happy now. I made a good decision.”

Raja Rani and Athmasakhi are her debut serials in Telugu and Malayalam respectively and Avanthika is quite happy about the response she receives. “Here, people have started considering me as Dr Nandu, not Avanthika. That is one good thing,” she chuckles. “I could relate to Nandu pretty well. I bear some resemblance with her, but I am not possessive like her. Shylaja in Raja Rani is a traditional woman.  It is not difficult for me to depict two characters at a time. Instead, it is a learning experience.”

Was the transition from movies to serials difficult for Avanthika? “No. Actually, it was easy. The big screen is a wide range. You will learn a lot of things from there. In serials, dialogues are long. That’s it. The fact is people like serials. These days, people go out to watch only blockbuster movies. Otherwise, they depend on upon television channels for entertainment,” she says. But Avanthika has not left movies completely. She is planning to take both simultaneously and has a Tamil movie in the pipeline.