After a two-year break post Rocket, Aishani Shetty took on romantic drama Naduve Antaravirali. Ahead of the release of her upcoming film, Aishani is keen to see herself on the big screen after a long time.
“While I was doing Vaastu Prakara and Rocket, I was still an undergraduate student. I had more time to juggle between studies and shooting. But, when I was pursuing my Masters in Mass Communication and Journalism, I couldn’t allocate the kind of time that a commercial film would require.
Since the balancing act was getting hard, I decided to first concentrate on completing my studies,” says Aishani. But when Naduve Antaravirali came her way, the story and the subject was something she couldn’t resist.
“The story and content was appealing and I didn’t want to let go of such a film,” she says.
But it was when she started research on her character that she realised its complexity. “Nithya’s character was quite challenging but had much scope for performance,” she says.According to Aishani, Naduve...is a emotional love story that is set in a closed society. She says that even though the character is around her age and she could grasp the mentality of a college student, it was difficult for her to relate with the situation and it became a challenge.
“The film deals with a sensitive topic and is based on things that are unspoken in society. She falls into a crisis that is hard for a girl of that age to handle. It is quite a sensitive subject and something I wasn’t able to relate to. Which is why, it became important for me to understand the character’s psychology before taking it up. Though I can’t reveal the plot, I felt that the character was beyond my capacity,” she says.
It’s here that director Raveen Kumaara came into the picture and made it easy for Aishani, even going to the extent of planning her college schedule with the film’s.”So, I mostly shot during semester breaks and holidays,” she adds.
Touted to be a “cute” love story, Aishani assures that Naduve Antaravirali is not a run-of-the-mill commercial film.
Plunging into acting full-time
Now that Aishani has completed her education, she will be taking up acting seriously. “That’s what I always wanted to do. But I felt that gaining a degree was top priority,” she says.
With her college girl looks, Aishani has been labelled cute, and is hoping to break free of that tag by taking up versatile roles. “I try not to choose the same kinds of characters and films. Thankfully, the directors who have approached me so far have offered me different kinds of scripts,” she says.