Actress Nithya Menen has entered ground where even heroes fear to tread—on April 17, two of her Tamil films, OK Kanmani and Kanchana 2, were released on the same day. “That’s mighty courageous of her,” says a film critic. “In Tamil Nadu, it’s the death knell...heroes are very careful that the release dates of their films don’t clash. For sure, one will be compared with the other and the lesser film or both could suffer due to overkill.” But Nithya didn’t care and anyway both films were top grossers at the box office. Raghava Lawrence’s Kanchana 2 (comic-horror genre), where she plays a handicapped woman, was remarkably different from her role in Mani Ratnam’s O Kadhal Kanmani opposite Mollywood actor Dulquer Salman. But it’s not just in Tamil Nadu that this Malayali actress, who grew up in Bangalore, is grabbing eyeballs. Today, across the four south states, be it in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil or Malayalam language films, she is considered by each state as one of their own. On the same April day (cruellest month? Not for Nithya!), the bilingual version of OK Kanmani was released in Telugu as OK Bangaram while Kerala and Karnataka got the Tamil versions. At the same time, in home state Kerala, her Malayalam film, 100 Days of Love, had just completed a month and was looking like a blockbuster. And it had the same pairing: Dulquer and Nithya. Incredibly, they were in two romantic genre films back to back.
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The ease with which she straddles the four southern languages, the fluency of her pitch and intonation, dubbing for herself in all four, is bewildering, say industry sources. You watch her on TV doing interviews, be it to Tamil or Telugu or Malayalam channels, and Nithya is flawless. The words glide smoothly off her tongue and she even breaks into song, and in the language you want. Yes, she sings too, commanding another audience in these languages. New-age filmmaker V.K. Prakash, who’s worked with her, says, “Nithya is probably up there, she can be rated among the best in the country. I have even made her sing in my Kannada film. The role was small but she got very interested.” Incidentally, she’s won state awards in both Telugu and Malayalam.
Nithya isn’t the only Malayali girl rocking the southern screens. There are other Kerala girls, like Lakshmi Menon, Keerthy Suresh, Miya George— all young and relative newcomers—making their mark outside of Mollywood. Across the northern border of Tamil Nadu, in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the number of Malayali girls making a beeline for the industry rises by the day. The Kerala lasses seem particularly suited for rural roles. So there’s a Keerthy Suresh, Manjima Mohan, Malvika Nair all filming here. Telugu film critic Hemanth Kumar C.R. says, “These girls may not bag the most glamorous roles against the big boys but they are making their mark. For films on tight budgets and rural themes, Malayali girls do very well.” Not all ‘Mal gals’ make do with this though. Nithya Menen and heartthrob Nayanthara have come into their own. Nayanthara, in fact, is one of the most loved actresses over there with a huge Telugu fan following. Her role in the Telugu film Sri Ram Rajyam seems to have endeared her to the whole population. Her Sita picked up around eight awards though it wasn’t easy for her.
That she played the role didn’t go down well with political outfit Hindu Makkal Katchi and women’s activist groups. In fact, the former burnt her effigy protesting her being cast in the pristine role of a goddess. This has of course much to do with a much-publicised affair she had with dancer-director Prabhu Deva. In 2010, Prabhu was planning to divorce his wife and marry Nayanthara and she’d got a lot of bad press with women activists accusing her of breaking up the marriage. “There was Nayanthara in the midst of all these allegations and the yellow papers went to town painting her in the worst possible light,” says a source close to her. She even openly said that she was quitting films to marry Prabhu. But the marriage didn’t materialise and Nayanthara has since kept a low profile and the media at arm’s length. In fact, she no longer talks to the press, says a critic in Kollywood. There are only a few journalists she trusts, and even they are not allowed to quote her directly. But she’s learnt the hard way and after a couple of lean years she’s back in top form, commanding nearly two crores for a film. She’s also managed to star opposite most big names in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.
Nayanthara, who hails from a middle-class Christian family in Thiruvalla, made her debut in Malayalam films in 2003. By 2005, she had been roped into Tamil and Telugu films. Cut to 2015, and three of her films, in Tamil and Malayalam, have already hit the theatres while five Tamil films are either being filmed or are in the post-production stage. Undoubtedly, right now she’s the reigning queen among our southern belles.
Of course, a lot of it also has to do with luck. Take a versatile newcomer like Lakshmi Menon whose Tamil films have all been hits. So much so, Kollywood film producers think of her as a lucky charm now. Today, she has three Tamil films in post-production stage which will all be released this year: Komban, Sippai and an untitled Ajith-Siva film. “Though I am a Malayali, it seems like I have more experience in Tamil films. In Kerala, I was working in very small films. It’s different here, the work is very fast and it helps that I love the Tamil language. It’s very beautiful,” she tells Outlook.
Even more surprising is the demand for 22-year-old Keerthy Suresh (daughter of former actress Menaka). She is filming three big budget Tamil films today, Ithu Enna Maayam, Rajini Murugan and Paambu Sattai; one in Malayalam, Darboni; and two in Telugu, Aina Ishtam Nunnu and Harikatha. This year alone she has been cast in six films—and this is when not a single Tamil film of hers has been released yet (so far she’s only been seen in Malayalam films).
Working in even one Malayalam film seems to be like a great training ground for these actresses (a PRO of a production house in Kerala says he’s “often called by directors and producers from the other states and asked if there are fresh faces who have worked in even one film!”) They pick up the craft and seem to easily get into the skin of a character, be it village belles or city girls. As always, talent shines and slowly they get bigger and better roles. Asin is a perfect example of this. From Kollywood to playing opposite Aamir Khan and Salman Khan in Bollywood, when initially she made little impact in Malayalam. She made it big in Tamil films and then quickly moved to Bollywood. But that path isn’t for everyone. For newer stars like Nithya and Nayanthara, the happy place to be is ruling the roost in the south.
By Minu Ittyipe in Kochi
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