Adah Sharma grateful to Tollywood

Tamilian beauty Adah Sharma, who began her career in Bollywood, is now a star in Tollywood. But the course of events in the last one week is something that changed her career forever.

A wide-eyed Adah says, “My new release Kshanam has received an unexpected ovation. All of us involved with its making, including director Ravikanth Perepu and my co-star Adivi Sesh, are surprised as none of us expected the movie to have such a wide reach. Even people from the non-Telugu regions are responding positively.”

Adah, who began her career with Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 in 2008, owes it all to the Telugu film industry. “After making my debut in Hindi, I thought I’d do a Tamil film since Tamil is my mother tongue. Instead, Puri Jagannadh offered me my first Telugu film Heart Attack.”

Heart Attack did well and Adah became a sought-after heroine in Tollywood. She had two successive releases in February. “My two releases couldn’t have been more dissimilar. My first was called Masala which was like a hardcore single-theatre film. Then came Kshanam, a commercial yet out-of-the-box movie. It is so different from anything in Telugu cinema. We’re already into the profit zone. We shot the film on a tight budget.”

Adah recalls the moment when she was offered Kshanam. “When I heard the script, I jumped at it. I was like, ‘Let’s do it now.’”

Does it bother her that her character gets bumped off mid way? “Not at all! My character Swetha is the life of the plot. Even after she dies, she keeps appearing in flashbacks and songs. So I didn’t miss myself in the second-half.”

Adah now steps into her home territory with a guest appearance in Idhu Namma Aalu — her first film in her mother tongue. “I am from Tamil Nadu and it’s my first film in the language I grew up speaking. And it’s a dance number with Simbu. So I am very excited,” she says.

Adah also reveals that the dance number in the film was first offered to Shruti Haasan. She hopes that this would lead to a full-fledged role in a Tamil film soon.