Eyes THAT SPEAK A MILLION WORDS

SHY AND RETICENT, YET BRAVE, BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL, THAT'S ADITI RAO HYDARI FOR YOU, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PROVOKE MAGAZINE

- NAMITA GUPTA

The gorgeous starlet who was to make her on-screen debut with the Tamil film Sringaram, however was seen in her first theatrical release, the Malayalam film Prajapathi in 2006, in which she starred alongside Mammootty. Her February 2022 Tamil release Hey Sinamika with Dulquer Salmaan and Kajal Aggarwal, garnered a lot of attention. But it was her lead role in Mani Ratnam's Kaatru Veliyidai as doctor Leela Abraham that made the South Indian film industry stand up and recognise this talent. She also won many awards for this movie. Her recent release Maha Samudram in Telugu with Sharwanand and Siddharth was loved by all. Born in Hyderabad, Aditi Rao Hydari has worked in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam films and will soon be seen in Gandhi Talks alongside Vijay Sethupathi and Arvind Swami, besides Taj: Divided by Blood, Heeramandi, Jubilee and other interesting projects.

What have been some of the biggest highpoints of your journey so far?

One of the most special points of my professional journey would be working with director Mani Ratnam. I got into the films and wanted to be an actor because I watched Mani Sir’s films as a child and I wanted to be a Mani Ratnam heroine. So, when I worked with him, it was like a little girl’s dream come true and it made me believe in my dreams. And there’s lot more to do in the future, so we'll see.

What does family mean to you? How was the lockdown period for you? How do you spend time when you’re not working or at a shoot?