Mollywood is seeing a deluge of well-known names from Bollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood and Tollywood making a beeline to Malayalam. For sure it is not the remuneration that attracts these actors but other factors like realistic storylines and the chance to work with professionals and a talented cast and crew.
Bollywood actress Rasika Dugal will be starting her innings in Malayalam through the film Kammati Paadam starring Dulquer Salmaan in which she plays a Mumbai resident. The film moves through different time periods and Rasika’s portion is shot in the present.
Rasika had only one reason to accept her role — director Rajeev Ravi. “Rajeev called and asked if I could do the role. In return, I asked him if the part was important to him and he said ‘yes’. I too said ‘yes’.”
Rasika did not blindly sign on the dotted line —- she had worked with Rajeev earlier. She explains, “He used to visit while I was studying in FTII and I knew him as one of my seniors. He was doing a lot of work in Mumbai and he was one of the seniors everyone talked about because of his work. I had also worked with him very briefly in two scenes for the movie No Smoking, for which Rajeev hadled the camera”
Describing more about her director, Rasika says, “I was unnerved at first because there was not much explained script wise and there was no rehearsal Rajeev does not talk much and he just gave me a brief sketch of the character. I guess Rajeev is a very visual person because of his cinematography. There was a scene which was only three lines in the script. When we actually shot the scene, if I were to write down what we shot, it would have been three pages! He is very cued in about what he wants in a scene and is very sharp about picking up small nuances that would enhance the scene. There are some directors you blindly trust and Rajeev is one such person and I was not disappointed at all.”
Talking about her co-star Dulquer, she opines that he has the twin qualities of a star as well as an actor. Dulquer, she says, is very genuine listener who gives his complete attention to you when you speak to him. “He is very easy to get along with!”
The language problem did not bother her because she had to speak in Hindi but says that Malayalam is a very tough language which she could not make head or tail of. Rasika has played parts in some major as well as minor Bollywood movies before she got the lead role in the Hindi film Kshay that went to many international festivals and also acted with Irfaan Khan in the Punjabi film Qissa, among others.
