Can’t wait to see Tagaru as a movie lover: Bhavana

Fifteen years into her career, having done nearly 80 films in four langauges, Bhavana is loved for her easy style of acting and her camera presence. She credits it to her intense ambition to be an actor and love for cinema from a very young age. "Since childhood I have always wanted to be an actor and even expressed this desire to my parents. I did my first film when I was 15 years old, just out of school,” she says.

She is a director’s actor and Bhavana says that she has many dream roles she would have liked to play, but “there is no point in talking about them,” she adds. "Seldom do we get a dream character, and I just stopped talking about this. Once in a while we get to play something out-of-the box and one such role I thoroughly enjoyed was in Adventures of Omanakuttan. I thought the character Pallavi was peculiar. Such roles come as a surprise and I hope to get more of them,” she says.

It's been just three weeks of marriage for Bhavana, who tied the knot with Kannada actor and producer Naveen in a small ceremony. The new-to-Bengaluru girl says, "I don’t feel very differently after marriage because I have known him for the the past six years. About this new phase of life, so far so good”.

Bhavana has strong feelings about the eternal question asked of female actors who get married. Male actors are never asked if they would quit their career after marriage, then why are female artistes posed this question, she wonders. She says, "Marriage is not the end of any heroine's career. I definitely will not give up my career because I am married. No male actors are doing this, so why should female actors have to?"

She goes on to say, "Naveen is familiar with cinema and how it works. He has asked me to continue working and doesn't want me to sit at home. I have been in this industry for 15 years, so why should I quit all of a sudden? I am also not the kind of person to sign on one film after another. So I don't mind sitting at home for two to three months spending time with my family." When offers came by, Naveen asked her to consider them if she liked the scripts. "That's how I decided to be part of Inspector Vikram, which is the only film I am working on as of now. I will take up more projects if something really good comes up. I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity and regret later,” she says. 

The actor now looks forward to the release of her much-talked-about film Tagaru, which has her working with director Suri for the second time after Jackie and for the first time with Shivarajkumar. 

"I have always been selective when signing on films, be it in Kannada, Malayalam or any other language. If you track my career in the last six years, I have never been in a rush to do films back to back, and have done one or two films a year. This year I have Tagaru," she says.

Suri had approached Bhavana to play the female lead in Tagaru. He asked her to listen to the outline of the character in this action-thriller that has Shivanna playing the lead. "I was being offered an opportunity to work again with a director who launched me in Kannada (through Jackie), and I said okay, because I also thought I fit well into the character. I was very happy to be working with Suri sir again. He is a sweetheart.”

The actor adds, “I had been offered a few projects before, to work with Shivarajkumar. But unfortunately, I couldn't take these up because I had signed on other projects. Therefore, this was a wonderful experience, to work with both Suri and Shivanna. I am glad that there is so much excitement over this film and it already has people talking about it.”

It's been 8 years since Jackie, has she noticed any change in Suri's style of direction? "He has advanced in the technical aspect of filmmaking but, as a person, he remains the same. He is as down-to-earth as he was back then. I know people call him a hit maker and one of the top directors in Kannada, but he believes in simplicity. He tells me that he learns every day by working with new people. I have known his family, his cute son and an amazing wife, for a long time now,” she says.

Bhavana says that, as a director, he gives complete freedom to his actors. “He rarely interferes in our portrayal of our characters. If he wants another take, he politely makes a request. I keep telling him that he is the captain of the ship and he shouldn’t ask anyone. This is the kind of rapport we share.. more like give and take and with respect for each other.”

She feels fortunate to have worked with superstars of the Kannada industry, including Puneeth Rajkumar, Sudeep, Ganesh and now with Shivarajkumar. “They are all wonderful human beings,” she says, adding, "When this project was offered, I was excited. I had met Shivanna during Jackie's shoot and found him very forthcoming. Back then, I was hesitant to speak to him. But he came up to me and spoke… I remember thinking how grounded he was. On the sets of Tagaru, we had a lot of discussions on various subjects.”

She does not want to share too many details about Tagaru, but tells us that she plays a dentist in the film. “She is the kind of girl every guy would want to be married to,” says Bhavana.

Her character’s younger sister is being played by Manvitha Harish. “I share a wonderful bond with her,” she says. "In fact, I found a sister in Manvitha. She is so cute and caring.”

Bhavana wants Tagaru to be a huge success. “Much effort has gone into it. It was excellent team work by everyone, including producer KP Sreekanth, all the technicians and the director. The film has great music by Charan Raj. I love all the tracks, but I am going to be selfish and pick Badukina Bannave as my favourite. Like every movie lover, I, too, am waiting for the film's release," she says.