North Call

The trailers of Raavan is dominated by two characters — Abhishek Bachchan and a wet and laughing Priyamani who emerges from the water enveloped in a halo of water droplets. The shot is only two seconds long but enough to pique interest in the new actor whose ties to Bollywood were so far restricted to her being a distant cousin of actor Vidya Balan. But that’s not the case anymore. With two big releases— Mani Ratnam’s Raavan and Ram Gopal Varma’s Rakhta Charitra under her belt,the pretty Priyamani has found her foothold in the Hindi film industry.

She plays the role of Gangula Bhanumati,wife of Maatal Suri (played by Suriya) in Rakhta Charitra and Shoorpanaka in Raavan. While she has been a protégé of Ratnam for long in the South,she never expected him to give her a break in Bollywood. “One day Mani Sir called me to his office and narrated the script of Raavan. He then asked me how good my Hindi was. When I told him that it’s quite good,he asked one of his assistant directors to talk to me in Hindi and I was asked to reply only in Hindi,” says Priyamani. And soon she bagged the role of Raavan’s sister.

It was a slightly different story with Varma,who she met only on the first day of her shoot of Rakhta Charitra. “I have always been an ardent fan of Ramu Sir’s movies. He has given some of the biggest hits. So when I got a call from him asking me to act in the film,I was delighted,” says the 25-year-old actor,who had her first hit in the Telugu film Pellaina Kothalo in 2006. A year later,she acted in her first Kannada hit Raam. “I have acted in all four film industries in the South. I speak all four languages because of my upbringing in various cities,” she says.

Raavan and Rakhta Charitra will be made in Tamil,and Telugu and Tamil respectively. “I consider myself fortunate to be doing a single film in different languages,” she smiles. But what got her more excited was sharing screen space with some talented actors like Abhishek Bachchan,Vikram and Suriya. “After this I hope to bag more roles. If not,I am happy in my world down South,” she says.