This story is from March 23, 2015

Sudeep's Ranna changed Madhoo's life!

The Roja fame actress talks about on her second innings, work-life balance, playing roles her age and her `life-altering' experience shooting Kannada flick Ranna
Sudeep's Ranna changed Madhoo's life!
It must feel good to be back. But were you always planning to come back after marriage?
I never thought I wanted to work again. But when you're a film artiste, it doesn't matter what you do and how you do, you'll always remain an artiste. The way I function is I give more than what I have to in what I choose to do. When I chose to become a wife, mother and raise a family, it was almost impossible for me to think of anything else other than running my home.
But the need to be an artiste and to do what I know best made me realise very soon whether if I do another film or not, but this is what I love doing. And eventually when my children grew up, my husband said, “As long as the children don't suffer and the home doesn't miss you too much, you try and do what you like“.
When you made the decision to act again, did you ask yourself what kind of roles you'd like to take up...
Most actors look forward to something best in their comeback roles. When people started coming to me with fantastic roles, they'd tell me that I'll be required for 25 days or a month, and travel somewhere for the shoot. Invariably at that time, I couldn't take it up. I only took up roles which required just a few days to shoot. Instead of looking for the roles, I started looking at how many days will someone need me for a project. It's not the right way to start working again, but I just couldn't be away from my family for too long. After working in Vaaya Moodi Pesavum (2014) and Ranna (shoot is on), I realised the importance of doing good roles and not worry about how many days I need to set aside. Now, I give prime importance to the roles that are offered to me. If I'm working, I might as well do something that gives me immense satisfaction.
It must be challenging for a yesteryear popular heroine to land good roles post marriage...
Honestly, I know 20 years have passed since I played a heroine, and a whole new life has happened for me with marriage and children. But even today, I don't see myself as somebody who has aged. I still see myself as a young heroine, but I know a lot has changed since I played a heroine the last time. What I expect today is the role of a main protagonist in a very nice story like Ranna. I still see myself as a heroine, who need not always be 18 or 20.When I say heroine, I'm referring to the main char acter in a movie. Why can't a heroine be a middle-aged lady? I know I can't change the way the industry functions or the audience, but I feel I should get those kinds of roles. And definitely such roles are very hard to come by. The roles that easily come by are of the mother of the hero or heroine. It's a huge battle in my mind if I want to take up such roles, but I've understood in the last two years that there can be something nice about these roles too, and I need to look for them. Everybody talks about English Vinglish, but it's just a one-off film. I can't think of many such films. But I haven't fixed any set rules for myself and whatever any director envisions for me and thinks it'll be good, I'll do it if I like it. I really look forward to playing strong characters. I love doing comedy, playing the sad woman or even the angry woman. I think it's difficult to find good roles when you set boundaries and rules.I've duly avoided all that because I'm keen on continuing working and not remain too critical about the roles.

But most yesteryear heroines, barring a few, easily get typecast in mother roles...
I'm sure none of my contemporaries or senior heroines like Sridevi, Madhuri, Juhi and Raveena want to play mother roles. But if the protagonist of the movie happens to be a mother, I don't think any of us would have a problem with that. I don't have a problem being a mother on screen, because I'm one in real life. But what concerns me is when I play a mother with no purpose. When most directors come with the mother's role what they mean is that I have no role to play apart from being in favour of or against the relationship between the hero and heroine. I recently did a Telugu movie called Anthaku Mundu Aa Tharavatha where I was the mother of the heroine, but I loved my role because it was backed by a separate story that runs parallely with the main story of the lead actors. My story may have been small, but I was the protagonist in it.
Isn't it easier for someone who's a mother in real life to reprise the same role on the screen as well?
It's easier for me to accept it because I'm a mother anyway. But roles usually come to someone the way the director sees him or her. People always saw me as the girl-next-door but I get super excited if someone came to me with a negative role. In my movie Pehchaan, in the early 90s, I played a bar girl who does things usually actresses don't like doing. I took up the role that was refused by many top heroines at that time. I still consider it as one of my best roles and proudly remember it as my favorite film. In acting, you have to transcend your own limitations. There was another movie where I was supposed to play a gay psychotherapist.The film didn't happen, but my friends asked me why I would want to play a gay woman. But I asked them why the discrimination. It's a character about somebody's emotions and I would like to be the voice against such discrimination. I love exploring other dimension of human beings. So many negative thoughts cross my mind, but why do I always get to be the good girl. That's why I'm slowly opening up to character roles as it allows you to cover wide spectrum in terms of performance.
Are you happy with the way you've been received on your comeback?
I'm happy because it started with a small step. When I started acting again, my intentions were different but now they're changing. I'm slowly becoming greedy. When I did my first film on return, my only intention was that I was out of the house for just five days. Today, I'm greedy for better and lengthier roles. And since I'm feeling like that, I'm sure the change will eventually happen.Initially, I didn't have the time and inclination, so I started small. Now, I'm waiting for better things because I'm ready.
Family must've played a great role in letting you don the greasepaint again...
I belong to a very liberal and progressive family. My husband says, “Who am I to tell you what to do. I don't own you.You're my partner and friend“. I'm proud to be part of such a family. But I personally don't like to be absent from my family members' lives. I always like to be around them and because of this kind of unity, it's little difficult at times for me to manage. They're very supportive and I want everyone in my family to be happy doing what they're doing. But if i'm not around for them when they need me the most, I don't think anybody is going to be happy.
By becoming greedy for better and lengthier roles, won't you miss being around your daughters?
When I go to work, my mother-in-law is always around them. Even though I have an efficient team of staff members at home, my daughters are mostly looked after by my mother. I keep in touch with them on a daily basis. When I take up a project and give away dates, it's always in consultation with everyone at home. I make sure my mother and mother-in-law will be in town when I'm out shooting.And that there are no important school activities I end up missing and make sure my husband is not travelling. I take care of these minor adjustments before I step out. Thankfully, thus far there hasn't been a single instance where I had to cancel and reschedule shoot.God has been very kind in this regard.
Do you also discuss your roles with your family; say your daughters and husband?
When I take up a role, I'm usually so excited that I can't stop talking. I tell them, but they're not my deci sion makers. Anything I sign is absolutely based on my intuition. I do discuss with them the story and about my character, but in the end, I decide whether to take up a role or not. Let's talk about Ranna. It's funny you're playing an aunt to an actor (Sudeep) who is nearly as old as you.Some friends of Sudeep had come to the sets once. As he was introducing me, he said, “Meet my glamorous aunt“ (laughs).What's exciting about Ranna is the fabulous role I got to portray. In fact, today, I owe all my greediness to Ranna. Till I did this film, I was very satisfied with playing small roles. My intention was to quickly finish shooting and run back to my family. But all that has changed with Ranna, which made me realise that that you can be a character artist and yet play plum roles. The experience of working in this film was awesome. Any comeback artiste can proceed in two ways in their careers.When you come back having worked with some great film-makers, you meet these young directors and tell them that they can't teach you because you've worked with the legends. This is one kind of attitude. But my attitude while working on Ranna was, 'Listen, I may have worked with the legends, but I love your new style and I want to learn. What is that I can learn from you because I've been away from the industry for so many years.' I learnt so much from director Nanda Kishore. As an artiste, it's important to work in tandem with your director and quickly adapt to his or her style of filmmaking.
What next?
At the moment, I'm talking to many people and I've not accepted any project for reasons of my own. I'm waiting for Ranna to release and I feel it has given me the confidence to not rush into signing any project and wait for better opportunities.I really want something better. I want to add value to any project that I'm associated with and not just merely accept a role because I'm available.
'I can play any character, if Mani Ratnam is my director'...
I've told Mani sir it's my dream to work with him again. The only reason being, a) he's one of the greatest filmmakers of our country b) he understood me and gave me something no other filmmaker has ever. In Roja, I never acted. I didn't do anything special or different. But the way he portrayed my character and made me do things made it the best performance of my career. In my opinion, I can play any character if he's my director. Since I'm back in movies, I think nobody else can give me a better character than Mani sir.
— Haricharan
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