Dhanyaa, who made her acting debut in last week’s release, 18.05.2009, is quite happy with her performance in the film.
“I am only a film old in the industry, but given the good words I’m hearing, it feels like I’ve already hit a century,” she gushes. “I’m really lucky to have been picked for the role from amongst the scores of new faces director Ganeshan scouted. My eyes were apparently what helped him decide.”
Dhanyaa admits that she did not know much about the events the film is based on — the rape of a journalist by the Sri Lankan army.
It was only when she dug into the script that reality dawned. “I was ashamed to have been ignorant till then and wasted no time in learning all the facts of the event. Once I understood the magnitude of the suffering of the Tamil people, I did not have to do any acting.”
She says everyone in the unit took to calling her Selvi, after the character she played. About the gruesome rape scene, Dhanyaa says shooting it was emotionally draining.
“However, the director was considerate and we shot the scene in the presence of only a single camera and a female assistant director. There was a thin line of cloth draped on me. It was aesthetically shot and I felt no uneasiness. The director’s instruction was to treat it as a normal shot and somehow, I managed it in one take.”
On the day of the film’s release, Dhanyaa received a call from an unknown number. “The caller said he was from London and gave me an earful about that scene. I told him that as an actor it is all in a day’s work, but it fell on deaf ears.”Dhanyaa hopes to next try her hand at commercial cinema. “It will be a nice change,” she says.