Meet Mollywood actor Santhy Balachandran who makes her Bollywood debut in Rahul V Chittella directorial ‘Gulmohar’
Meet Mollywood actor Santhy Balachandran who makes her Bollywood debut in Rahul V Chittella directorial ‘Gulmohar’
Santy Balachandran is a popular Malayalam actor and for the first time she has made a debut in Bollywood film ‘Gulmohar’ starring Sharmila Tagore, Simran, Amol Palekar, Manoj Bajpayee and Suraj Sharma.
The actor is awestruck by the professionalism of the co-actors in the film who are well recognised and as actors to reckon with. Santhy essays the role of a coy and loyal domestic help Reshma Saeed in the movie.
In her interaction with the media she makes it known that besides the space provided for her character, it was the opportunity to share the screen space with such professional and veteran actor Sharmila Tagore and South’s most popular actor Simran in ‘Gulmohar’.
For Santy it was a privilege to share space with veteran actor Sharmila Tagore whom she found to be very supportive
‘Gulmohar’, the family drama is streaming on Disney+Hotstar, and marks veteran actor Sharmila Tagore’s return to the silver screen after 13-year hiatus.
Her character in the film has a special equation with Simran’s character. Both play characters with South Indian heritage. Though a superstar in South, she went out of her way to make her feel comfortable.
Adding further Santy elaborated that everyone on the set, including the young actors, were friendly. Manoj Bajpayee conducted an acting workshop before the shoot and it worked as an icebreaker for all of us. The director also played an instrumental part in making us feel comfortable on the sets.
Santhy generally takes up a character based on her conviction about the film. Factors like whether she wants to be part of the story influence her decision a lot. In ‘Gulmohar’, she liked how the director and editor treated every character and how each of them had their arc. Also, Reshma’s character was quite different from many of the roles she has essayed in Malayalam films. In Mollywood, most of her characters had grey shades or an ulterior motive. For example, Sofie in ‘Jallikattu’ and Maalu of ‘Tharangam’ who has kleptomania. Even Linda in ‘Paapam Cheyyathavar Kalleriyatte’ is a person with a psychological disorder. Reshma, however, was different. She found Reshma’s character a spunky woman, who both feisty and sensitive at the same time. She is confident in her interactions with others, but when it comes to matters of the heart, she is still waiting for people to make the first move. It was interesting to balance her sassy side.
For Santhy ‘Gulmohar’ is not a typical Bollywood film, but a studio production. She admires the communication and structure which gave a corporate feeling. At the same time, the people on set were warm and friendly and she was impressed by how things were planned out well.
On the work front Santhy doesn’t have any new projects but a few more upcoming releases. She awaits for the release of the Amazon web series ‘Sweet Kaaram Coffee’, which revolves around three generations of women from the same family. She plays the lead alongside veteran actors Lakshmi and Madhoo in it. It belongs to the feel-good, family drama genre and will be a refreshing change from the dark content that dominates OTT these days. She finds working on a web series quite rewarding because as an actor you get more time and space to develop your character’s arc.
Sidharth Bharathan’s Chathuram has been released on OTT and is generating a lot of discussions. She essays a character Jijimol. She has simple dreams and is working her way towards achieving them. What she finds most gripping about her was that she is also wise enough to know when it is time to let go and does so with great dignity. Santhy loves her sense of self-respect.
Santhy looks forward for more
Bollywood films with challenging roles those that leaves an indelible mark.
News Input K.V.Raman
