Aishwarya Rajesh talks about TV serials and her entry into cinema with films like Pa Ranjith’s Attakathi. She talks about casting couch, about North Indian heroines and the opportunities they get. Despite performance-oriented roles like the ones in Dharma Durai (with Vijay Sethupathi) or Kaaka Muttai, she emphasises the need for glamorous roles opposite big stars like Ajith and Vijay and Vikram (her Dhruva Natchatiram co-star). She talks about being a Shah Rukh Khan fan, and about Simran, Roja, Khushbu, her favourite actresses. She discusses working with Seenu Ramasamy, Gautam Menon, Mani Ratnam, VetriMaaran, Manikandan, and talks about learning cricket for Sivakarthikeyan’s Kanaa.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
MANK
September 14, 2018
Perhaps Brangans best FC video interview with an actor/ actress. So articulate and so honest she is. I have always loved her as an actress, now I admire her more for the women she comes across in this interview. Thanks a lot for this Brangan sir
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MANK
September 14, 2018
But she looks more comfortable speaking in English . so why insist upon conducting this interview in Tamil with subtitles when almost ninety percent of it is in English?. Is it company policy or something?
The comments she made about Hari made me LoL. Looked like You too had a hard time suppressing your laughter about the guy who uses an aruvamanai to edit his films😁
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Voldemort
September 14, 2018
Great interview! She is so genuine and nice, and I was in splits when you said “Enaku avalo vayasellam avalanga”.
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JalabulaJugs
September 14, 2018
Excellent interview Brangan!! I couldnt help but notice how most of the issues you passionately feel about, were echoed by her. From, heroine’s appropriateness to North Indian imports to lip sync, she simply smashed ’em.
I am truly glad she is having a wonderful 2018 with saamy, ccv, dhruva natchathiram and kanaa in pipeline
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Honest Raj
September 15, 2018
So, SK is producing a women-centric film?
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Siva
September 15, 2018
She just loosened up and became more and more comfortable during the course of the session. And I loved how she opened up and voluntarily shared certain incidents that happened during filming. In most of the TV interviews, the anchors have to keep prodding the celebrity to share experiences on specific incidents. This appears to be one genuine girl who does not pretend to be something she is not.
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rsylviana
September 15, 2018
@Honest Raj – Yup, He’s gonna need them so that he can mention them in interviews when people call him out for the blatant sexism prevalent in all of the movies he stars in .
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krishna prasad
September 15, 2018
Excellent interview. She looked as happy as a kid who’s received her fav candies and throughout the intvw BR was looking like a person who was amazed at how many she was having. One sour note was her usage of palams, Pazham maa adhu. PS- It’s high time the Tamils pronounced it properly. Highly irritating to hear people talk like that. I don’t find any malayalee having difficulty in pronouncing the zhas, y do Tamil people find it difficult to do so. Not that it’s a imported word. Is it hep to say palam, valkai etc?
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Rad Mahalikudi
September 15, 2018
@MANK: hard time suppressing your laughter about the guy who uses an aruvamanai to edit his films
ROFL. Nice one.
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Madhu
September 15, 2018
I am so glad that she is getting to do movies with big actors and directors, this actor deserves it! I loved how she said that you couldn’t find a single lip sync issue with her other language films 🙂 Good to know she had fun in her bollwood outing. So, actresses who are dusky, who can speak Tamil and who can act well can actually do well in the industry, mind blowing!
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Rajesh Balasubramaniam
September 15, 2018
When I was the interview length to be ~40 minutes, i raised my eyebrows. I think even a Karthick subburaj interview was only around 40mins. But, once I started watching, i couldn’t stop it. The girl’s thoughts were flowing like a river (from a ootru). @brangan might have felt my job made easy (just like the Asin Interview in Ghajini). Only BR can say what he really felt.
Also, the timing of the interview was sort of perfect. Only in recent CCV audio launch she lamented the industry for stereotyping her (costumes especially) with Kooda mela Kooda vechu, Aandipatti roles.
BR – please interview Simran, Radhika (i know you admire her work (from the Karthik Subburaj interview)), Visu sir, … And why not a Conversations with Ilayaraja book… ?
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Srinivas R
September 15, 2018
She comes across as a little innocent and I say that as a complement. A very fun interview with Aishwarya as an active participant. Somehow her description of how she was treated in Bollywood moved me. Wishing her success and praying that an insignificant presence in Saamy2 doesn’t end up hurting her.
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Srinivas R
September 15, 2018
I am a little surprised that she calls Some an, Khushboo and Roja as good performers. Simran, may be in a few movies with good directors, Khushboo probably in certain Tamil cinema equivalent of dumb blonde roles, but Roja? I can’t recollect one good performance of hers. I guess it’s also reflection of the kind of roles available for lead actress in the not so distant past.
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Srinivas R
September 15, 2018
The perils of auto correct, changed Simran to some an..
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Rahini David
September 15, 2018
I think what she was getting at was that Roja and Ramba were glamorous without being vulgar. And Meena and Sneha. So why not she herself.
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sanjana
September 15, 2018
A nice interview. She is very pretty and talks without too many pauses. Means she is quite spontaneous.
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(Original) venkatesh
September 15, 2018
Really good this.
Great interview.
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Purple Sky
September 16, 2018
Frankly, I couldn’t digest that Roja did glamorous role without vulgarity. I hate the dressings of actresses in the 90s and I find it more vulgar than glamorous. (I know it is not necessarily the actresses fault as much as the costume designer). But the dressing in the new generation Malayalam cinema… That is glamorous, without being vulgar.
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Siva
September 16, 2018
krishna prasad: ” She looked as happy as a kid who’s received her fav candies ”
Srinivas R: ” She comes across as a little innocent and I say that as a complement. A very fun interview with Aishwarya as an active participant. ”
Both of your assessments are very true.
This was so visibly evident from the childish glee with which she explained the origin of her social media handles.
Especially the way she described Yahoo! Chat to BR.
Who then gave himself a self-bulb by describing himself as not too old 😀 😀
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Voldemort
September 16, 2018
I hate the dressings of actresses in the 90s and I find it more vulgar than glamorous*
I don’t know, but I always thought the difference between glamour and vulgar was in the dance movements (like the ones in item numbers) and in the way they were shot. How is this difference defined? Can anyone explain?
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Uma
September 16, 2018
Very nice interview. Loved it. I wish Aishwarya all the success and hope she gets the break she deserves. It almost looks like Tamil speaking heroines need to resort to demanding a quota/reservation for them to land a heroine role in big budget movies. The irony and hypocrisy of our film makers is that give very pure Tamil names for the Maida Maavu heroines (probably those heroines cannot even pronounce names like Kannuku Iniyal, Koperundevi etc).
I somehow cannot seem to accept the argument that our audience does not like to see namma ooru ponnu in glamorous roles. Radhika has done so many glamorous roles and the mother of all sexy siren Silk Smitha was dusky too. I think it all boils down to catering to the youthu (after all they are the ones who are contributing to a major chunk of ticket sales) and making them feel that a below average looking guy could end up with the most beautiful alabaster automaton.
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Srinivas R
September 16, 2018
@purple sky – I think in the 90’s the camera had a vulgar gaze at all lead actresses. Even with non glamorous costume, they depicted the women in a vulgar fashion. Some of the dance choreography was shockingly crude. I think MANK used the term hyoersexualized in one of his comments, which aptly describes how heroines were treated.
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Vikram S
September 16, 2018
Good interview BR, as a non-Tamil speaking person, I liked the 90% English, and subtitles mix. She comes across as an intelligent, articulate and balanced person. This malaise of heroines from elsewhere plagues all the southern film industries. The reasons could also be that the’north-Indian’ girls not knowing the language can be made to act out or say risque lines, plus there is the point of skinshow that is thought as a necessary commercial film ingredient…also, sexualizing the other (as in -the imported heroine) would comes easier than doing the same when the heroine is a namma ooru ponnu (namma hudugi)…
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MANK
September 16, 2018
Rambha was definitely vulgar, not that i am complaining 🙂
More than vulgar or glamorous , the fact was, that the way heroines were dressed in a lot of the 90’s, 00’s (and even now) films were ridiculously inappropriate. Remember watching an Arjun film called Adimaichangalai which takes place in a village deep in the jungle. Rambha was the only inhabitant of the village getting a constant supply of macro minis and hot pants.
Srinivas is right about the hyper sexualised gaze in those films. just take the characters that Aishwarya played in Ejaman or ulle veliye – in which she played a cop for god sake. they are so crude. those characters serve no other purpose except to titillate the audience. Ditto Naghma in a lot of her films, like Villadhi villain , the only (thankfully 🙂 ) directorial venture of sathyaraj. where she is trying to learn stick fighting in a saree.
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brangan
September 16, 2018
MANK: For crying out loud, what else did you expect from a film called Ulley Veliye?
As in… Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye ….
You know what they had in mind, right? 😛
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Honest Raj
September 16, 2018
Uma: … probably those heroines cannot even pronounce names like Kannuku Iniyal, Koperundevi etc)
Sayyeshaa’s Tamil is way better than Trisha’s. She’s just about 2-3 films old and has picked up the language really well. Cut the kid some slack!
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MANK
September 16, 2018
brangan saaarr, words fail me to express my admiration for you 😀
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Honest Raj
September 16, 2018
As soon as she mentioned Roja, “Vaadi vethala paaku” started playing in the back of my head. Her Telugu films were even more horrible.
MANK: Remember Indhu? There’s a song (involving Khushboo) that has references to Kapil Dev and Tendulkar.
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MANK
September 16, 2018
Her Telugu films were even more horrible
Oh absolutely. and so is the case of Rambha and Ramya Krishnan. Alludu majaaka anyone?
Apart from the indhu song, there was another PD and Khushboo gem in Prathap -Maanga Maanga Dil Ne
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Honest Raj
September 16, 2018
AM landed Chiranjeevi in a huge trouble that he had to issue an apology and promise not to do such films in future. Lakshmi must have felt really bad for doing the film.
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Honest Raj
September 16, 2018
rsylviana: Mine was a genuine question. 🙂
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Siva
September 17, 2018
BR: ” MANK: For crying out loud, what else did you expect from a film called Ulley Veliye?
As in… Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye ….
You know what they had in mind, right? 😛 ”
Mister!
Why spoiling innocent MANK? 😛
Ellarum nammala madhiri kedayadhu :P. See …. now he is enlightened, admiring you and is planning to convert, or has already converted to one of us.
Till now, he might have inferred that the movie’s title meant JUST the harmless(!) card name that involves the same lingo ‘Ulley Veliye Ulley Veliye …. ‘ —-> MANKatha 😀
And now you have ‘enlightened’ and converted the pure innocence that was MANK 😀
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Maru
September 17, 2018
I really enjoyed Aishwarya’s candor, let’s hope she continues to speak her mind. A couple of things that stuck with me – First, her one point agenda seems to be to be able to do “glamor” roles and be presented as desirable and sexy. Otherwise her fulsome praise for the likes of Simran, Roja and Khushboo doesn’t make a lot of sense. I do feel her pain – the steady import of fair skinned non-Tamil speaking heroines who can’t act their way out of a paper bag must chafe constantly. Second, and this stayed with me, was her appreciation for the way she was treated on the sets of her Hindi film and in particular the way Arjun Rampal made sure she got treated right as the film’s female lead. Are the men in Kollywood (both behind and in front of the camera) just tone deaf and uncaring of key issues that are reverberating globally? Or are they sure that the patriarchal order is unassailable in their industry? In Bollywood women like Anushka, Kangana, Sonam, Deepika have all spoken out loudly and clearly not only on pay parity but also being treated equally on the sets. It seems to be have paid off at least to some degree. I also recall that Radhika Apte was scathing about the way she was treated on the sets of some of her films in the south – Telugu and also Tamil I think. Time for actresses like Nayanthara who have genuine box office clout to make some noise and clamor for greater parity.
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rsylviana
September 17, 2018
@Maru – *Are the men in Kollywood (both behind and in front of the camera) just tone deaf and uncaring of key issues that are reverberating globally? *
I think it is a combination of both. They really couldn’t care less about the heroines getting the rough end of the deal as long as they (the men) are being treated like Kings on and off the set. Listening to her speak about the treatment meted out to her , I’m guessing Nithya Menon must have gone through similar shit when she works as the second heroine to another ‘big’ star/actress (Mersal, 24, Irumugan etc).
But personally , even I’m not fond of her doing glamorous roles just for the heck of it especially in trashy fare like Saamy2 but I can see what she is working towards.
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Siva
September 18, 2018
rsylviana: ” But personally , even I’m not fond of her doing glamorous roles just for the heck of it especially in trashy fare like Saamy2 but I can see what she is working towards. ”
I too believe she is thinking long term. Her passion seems to be acting roles. But her need appears to be being part of larger productions that pay better. Those drabs could actually help her achieve that one thing she is seeking —- sustainability.
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(Original) venkatesh
September 18, 2018
Poor BR , he had to explain to her that he knew what Yahoo Id names are 🙂
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Tina
September 27, 2018
Ha ha. This interview now seems so funny! She doesn’t even get decent mention in Saamy review. Illadha padathula koovi koovi ivangala pottrukalame sollitu no proper mention in the review only. Hypocrisy much?
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