EXCLUSIVE: “The character gets judged, personally they attack me” - Amala Paul on taking up unconventional roles

Amala Paul made her debut in the year 2009 with the Malayalam film Neelathamara. Thereon, she has appeared in several films in different languages in the south and stood out for her choices in films and her performance. Most recently, the actress appeared in the Netflix original Telugu Anthology Pitta Kathalu, in which she played the title role of Meera. Pitta Kathalu narrates the role of women in romantic relationships and explores the power dynamics.

In an exclusive conversation with Bollywood Hungama, Amala Paul opened up about her role in Meera and the unconventional roles she has picked throughout her career.

When asked about her first thoughts on reading Meera, a story about a couple who are battling through insecurity, loyalty and marital rape, Amala said, “My first thought was excitement. It was also the platform and it is the first Telugu original and when you get an opportunity like that you don't want the content to be compromised or go wrong. I was very excited because everything got aligned, the story, director, the platform and the characters. So, I was very happy.”

Talking about the difference in treatment of characters in a short film and feature films, Amala said, “I didn't have a different process. But like you said in a feature film a director has 2 to 2 and1/2 hours to elaborate the story but in 30 minutes how you can show the story and how gripping it has to be. With acting also I don’t have so many scenes to sort of explore Meera. I don’t have so much space. Only in the given space I have to bring the best out of Meera. So I was only focusing scene by scene, like every scene, what was the emotion, what was the objective. The shoot was only for 10 days and I don't think I really connected with the character because it was so short so I was just focusing on it scene by scene.”

Amala has been taking up female oriented characters right from the beginning of her career and some of them have been bold in nature so much that she had hate comments coming at her. Talking about the same, she said,” Since the beginning of my career I have been offered unconventional projects and projects with strong female characters. I was blessed to have a debut like that and it went on. But the struggle was so hard because the character gets judged, personally they attack me. And I am like why can't you accept what you see in the society in cinema too. Why can't we accept our women to be intelligent and to stand up for themselves and be bold. Finally, my prayers have been heard.”

“If you look at Bollywood, a variety of content has come out, they are so bold and experimental, You see a lot of female centric projects which are nice and different. But here the actresses have not been explored. All of them are so talented and have so much potential. But they are not given that space. I think now is the time that prayers have been heard and the change is here,” she added.

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