I Do Not Want To Play Mother Roles To The Hero: Actor Meena Sagar

Actor Meena Sagar Interview: The pressure to be relevant in any cinema as an older woman actor has been felt by many in the industry. This is a struggle that most actors have spoken about in public or in media interviews. For Meena Sagar, the pressure was there. The choice of being limited to a mother character to a male actor same age or to fight her way back. She chose the latter.

This is not to say that she never tried mother roles or settled with the idea that after a few years a "heroine" becomes "irrelevant". Meena Sagar was not "happy and comfortable" playing the normalised role of a mother for older actors.

In an interview with SheThePeople, the actor said, "After playing wonderful roles and being the heroine for such a long period, I did not want to switch to those roles where you play mother to the hero. I did try but I did not like it. So I thought maybe this is not my cup of tea." 

The actor has her feet in almost all of the regional cinema down south. She began as a child artist in 1982 and went on to do some critically acclaimed as well as popular cinemas in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada film industries. She has worked with stalwarts in the film industry like Rajnikanth, Mohanlal and Daggubati Venkatesh, but her characters always left a mark. This was not coincidental.

Most often she chose work where her characters had "substance and a mind of its own". Like her character Jyothi in the upcoming crime thriller film, Drushyam 2, who is a woman in distress, handles her family and has equal footing as her husband played by Venkatesh.

In the crime thriller world created by director Jeethu Joseph, Drushyam and the sequel is the Telugu remake of Driysham and sequel, which is in Malayalam. The films in both languages are directed by Joseph and the characters are the same except for the names and a few other twists in the plot.

The sequel to Drushyam 2, the Telugu version, is going to release on Amazon Prime Video on November 25, today. The cast includes Venkatesh as Rambabu, Meena as Jyothi, Kruthika as Anju, Esther Anil as Anu and others. The sequel shows a happy family thrown back in past as a crime reemerges and the family tries to push it under the carpet.

It does sound complex and confusing, even Meena was unsure of playing Jyothi as she felt uncertain as to what more does the character has to offer. "I was hoping for a stronger character because when I first heard about the sequel, I was excited but I was wondering whether I will be having a strong character. But once I heard the script, I was happy and confident that this character again will make a mark and definitely reach the audience," says Meena. 

The actor has shared close bonds with both the lead male actors--Mohanlal and Venkatesh. She says going back to the sets after six years did not feel awkward because she knows both of them for a long time. "It was like meeting your friends after a gap," she says.

The actor began her shoots for the Telugu sequel in March. She had started shooting for the Malayalam sequel in September 2020 and it was released in February this year on Amazon Prime.

However great the going back to friends time was, she felt reluctant to leave her daughter and go for shooting during the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was the producers who actually convinced me because my family and I were not very sure. But the proper COVID-19 rules that were followed on sets eased me a little. It was strict." The carefulness in the sets also convinced her.

"The problem is we as actors could not wear masks in front of the camera, so we were more fragile. Everybody else from directors to people assisting could wear one. But thanks to the unit for taking their job seriously and following all the rules strictly even though it was inconvenient. But still, they did," she says.

(Feature Image Credit: Amazon Prime Video)

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