Double delight for Manjima

Barely a year into her Malayalam debut, Manjima Mohan is going places, literally speaking. She is being introduced to Telugu and Tamil audience simultaneously by acclaimed producer-director Gautham Menon. In an interaction with this correspondent, she opens up about several issues, including on landing up with the twin-offer, the role and image makeover.

Although Manjima enacted in a handful of films in Malayalam as a child artiste, she opines that playing the lead in Gautham Menon’s forthcoming bilingual ‘Saahasam Swasaga Sagipo’, (‘Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada’ in Tamil) is a completely different proposition.

“As a child artiste, there’s nothing much to do on the sets - just go there, get pampered and have fun. But the lead comes with loads of responsibilities. Earlier, I was lazy and never beauty-conscious. But now I have to be my presentable best. I had to also shed a few kilos for my role. I took care of my diet, skin and hair. I enjoyed the transformation process, though” she explains.

Recalling how she grabbed the offer, the actress says, “Gautham saw the trailer and my pictures from the previous film and asked me to come for an audition. I went to give my Tamil audition. I still ask Gautham sir why he chose me for this film and he hasn’t given me a proper answer yet (smiles).

But I never knew about the Telugu version, and was pleasantly surprised when I was told about it. I believe if you know the language, you can be very expressive. But Gautham insisted that I do both versions despite not knowing Telugu.” Understandably, she was nervous to start off with.

“Initially, I was scared and felt like ‘Oh God! It’s hectic and I have to learn both the languages’, so it was a bit confusing. But later, after a green signal from the people I realized how lucky I was as I could not have asked for a better launch,” quips Manjima, who is a big time foodie.

Manjima plays a mature college-goer in the romantic drama in which she is paired opposite Naga Chaitanya. She says working with him was fun. “Initially, I took time to strike a conversation but after a week, we got along well,” she smiles.