‘I can’t pretend on screen, I cry and laugh for real’

Rashmika Mandanna is busy with back-to-back releases, two weeks in a row. Last week her Anjaniputra hit the screens and this week, it will be Chamak. In it, director Suni has Ganesh playing a gynaecologist and Rashmika, a homemaker. The latter says that her character has various shades and in doing it, she has evolved as an actor.

“Chamak, my third film in a row, and I did my best for it. Suni got the best out of me, and made me play a role that I didn’t think I could do. It was after Chamak that I realised that, if given an opportunity, I can play a variety of roles,” she says.

For the film, Rashmika got to do many things for the first time, such as drawing rangolis, riding a Royal Enfield and going scuba diving. We are told that the actor even had to gulp down a glass of wine for a scene and she did it sportively. “Being a Coorgi, I am used to having wine with my parents. And when this particular scene required me to get a little high, I had wine to get it right,” she says.

She says that, unlike the usual run-of-the-mill characters, playing a homemaker was challenging. “Generally, we all think that homemakers lead sad lives. That they only do a lot of cooking and taking care of the house. But, in reality, they are so much more. We are not told about this often and people should understand this by watching me on screen,” she says.

Suni has also tried to deal with an emotional turmoil in Chamak, which deals with ‘what is missing’. In real life, Rashmika says, when you miss a loved one, you tend to pull back. “When a loved one goes missing, a part of you seems to be lost. They are there in the back of your mind all the time,” she says. “As a person, when I miss another, I tend to stay further away. For example, if I am in Hyderabad for shoot and I miss my mom, I call her or text her less often. I believe that the more you act on your sense of longing for the other, it only intensifies.”

We hear from the director that, in one scene, Rashmika was so carried away by its intensity that she continued to cry even after Suni called ‘cut’. “That’s how I perform. If I have to cry for a scene, I ask someone to make me sad. I have to cry for real, otherwise I can’t do the scene. Same is the case if I have to laugh too,” she says, adding, “I can’t bring myself to do anything artificial on screen. I prefer to do it from my heart.”

The film, made under Crystal Park Cinemas, has music by Judah Sandy and cinematography by Santhosh Rai Pataje.