Director was not initially impressed: Aishwarya Lekshmi

One of the noted factors of Alphonse Puthren’s Nivin Pauly-starrer Premam was that the director showed courage to cast three newcomers as the female leads — all of them doing prominent roles. When Althaf Salim, who enacted an important character in Premam, turned director, he too chose to cast a new actress as the heroine. Noted model Aishwarya Lekshmi thus became the female lead in Njandukalude Naatil Oridavela.

On her role in the Nivin Pauly-starrer, she says, “I am cast as Nivin’s heroine. Though we are the hero and the heroine, the film is not under the genre of romance; it is a family subject. As of now, I am not free to reveal more.” Njandukalude Naatil Oridavela is produced by Nivin under his banner Pauly Jr Pictures for which he earlier produced Action Hero Biju.

When it comes to her casting, Aishwarya says that it was not her modelling career that led her to the film. “It was I who approached this film’s crew after I came to know about the casting call. In fact, Althaf was not impressed after he saw the pictures which I had sent them as majority of them were with makeup and were taken as part of modelling. It was when he saw me during the audition that he finalised me for the role.”

Though it has been around three years since she started her modelling career, it is now that she zeroed in on her first feature film. “As part of modelling, I have acted in the advertisement films of popular brands. Then I got some offers from films. But it is now that I actually land on a project,” says the actress, who is an MBBS graduate. “I am doing my house surgeoncy now. During my modelling days, I was taking just two or three days of leave for the projects. But now, since I am working on a film, I have to block more dates for the shooting. I am getting good support from my college so that I can manage the course even after the shooting is over,” says the actress. She confirms that Ahaana Krishnakumar is also essaying a pivotal role in the film, which is all set to start rolling next month.