Quote

I won Miss Teen World, and then a movie rep saw me on the pageant website and thought that I had the perfect image for the role in 'Madrasapattinam.'

When I was 16, I felt very relieved to discover cinema. It was like an island where I could see life and death from another perspective. Every young person should be interested in that island. It's a beautiful place.

I loved being in Bombay. It was a pretty thrilling place to walk around and explore.

My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.

My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood.

I was new to acting before my role in 'Madrasapattinam.'

When I was sixteen I started acting, and I also started to embrace my tradition and culture. I had a young medicine man interpret for me what it is to be an Indian. He really caught me at a good time because I was really vulnerable after the loss of my parents with all of the feelings of abandonment.

I was fortunate because my mum shared my love of film with me, so we would go to the movies twice, three times a week, and we would watch movies at home. As a teenager, instead of going out, we would have these huge movie nights in. But I almost failed drama at school. I hated it. It was all about the history of theatre.

Ever since I was a little kid, the only thing that fascinated me, excited me, and engaged me was Hindi films. I didn't know anything beyond Hindi films. I was a 'filmi bachcha.'

Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child.