Sandalwood’s newest sweetheart

It’s not often that an actor with no film background enters the industry not with one but three films in hand. Nishvika Naidu, a debutante actress in Sandalwood had this to her credit. She has been nominated for the South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA) under the category of Best Debutante Actress (Kannada) for her film Amma, I Love You which released in June last year. Amongst the nominees, she is the only one who has had three releases in one year (the remaining two are in progress). “This is my first nomination and I am really excited. When I was a kid, I used to hold a shampoo bottle in one hand and a comb in the other, pretending to receive an award. I have my speech ready ever since! Of course, I am going to make changes to the speech, but I am waiting to give my speech,” she giggles, remembering that starry-eyed little girl.

Her career as an actress started when she finished her graduation in psychology from a University in Bengaluru and shifted to Mumbai to learn acting from the Barry John Acting Studio. After her return, she bagged Vaasu Naan Pakka Commercial, Amma I Love You and Paddehulli. Being new to the industry, she believes that selecting the right script is her biggest challenge. She says, “After my debut, everybody put this pressure on me saying that I am in the industry now and I have to select good scripts that suit me. So, after I rejected a movie, if someone else had taken it up, I used to doubt my decisions. But now, it’s gotten better, I know how it works.”

Currently working on two films, one with Prajwal Devaraj, titled Gentleman and the other with Anish Tejeshwar, titled Ramarjuna, Nishvika muses on what’s next, “I don’t know, really. I am open to reading new scripts at the moment. I have never thought about how it should be next. Although, I am an opportunist. If I get the opportunity to expand into different languages, I am open to taking it.” Even her dreams exhibit her versatility, when she says, “My dream role is to do a biopic.

It’s very inspiring and encouraging. On the other hand, my dream director is Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I want to look like a princess in his film, so royal and grand!”

No wonder then, that her latest interest is horse riding. She says that she wanted to learn horse riding all her life, but she was scared and now that she has the courage to, she learns it at Embassy. In a lighter vein, she says, “I think I want to become a jockey. It might be my alternative career option, you never know.”
Even if she isn’t on the racing circuit, this pursuit will certainly help her play warrior princess someday, though.

Talking about exploring the world with her to-go backpack, she says that her favourite travel destination is the Maldives and that the one thing she misses eating every time she travels is Indian Chinese; the kind of Chinese food that you get at Indian restaurants with Indian flavours. But when she isn’t travelling or shooting, Nishvika’s favourite pastime is to spend time at home with her mom and her four-legged canine brother, Leo. She says that she and Leo loving playing the game ‘catch me if you can’, and also that he loves to pretend as though he is biting her. Not having the chance to spend too much time at home during her shooting schedules, she prefers chilling at home as often as possible.

“When I do not post pictures or videos of my mom and dog for over a week, people on my social media start asking me where they are. It’s like they are now not just fans of me,” she laughs.