Before Anupama Parameswaran became the familiar face that audiences knew from films like Premam, A Aa, Karthikeya 2, 18 Pages and Tillu Square, she was a young girl learning to navigate her curls she thought of as a problem. Once a source of deep insecurity, her curls have gradually become an essential part of her identity. Today as the face of indē wild’s latest campaign and collaboration, she revisits her Sunday champi rituals of her childhood in an exclusive chat with CE. She further also discuses the insecurities that followed her into the early years of her career and the roles that helped her find confidence.
Excerpts
What does a Sunday champi look like in the Parameswaran household?
It’s a specific memory. My grandmother and mother would spend a day perfecting this oil, boiling herbs like neelambari with coconut oil, until the house smelled of it. Even the leftover debris became a scalp scrub. Nothing was rushed or wasted. Every Sunday, sometimes mid-week, my mother would sit me down and detangle my hair. I hated that, but five minutes became a countdown because I knew the champi was coming. Then it felt good. Wash your hair, eat lunch, fall asleep for a nap. I still crave that exact feeling.
How does it feel to be a part of indē wild's latest campaign?
It's meant a lot, honestly, because it's rare that a brand actually represents who you are rather than just borrowing your face. My hair has been the most consistent insecurity and now the most consistent identity of my entire life, long before acting ever entered the picture. So being asked to be part of the champi campaign wasn't really a decision; it felt like coming full circle. That blending of old and new is exactly how I've come to think about my own hair, so the whole thing felt like it was already speaking my language.
How has your hair care evolved over the years?
As a child, I hated the pulling and tugging while my mother worked through my knots, but nobody really knew how to handle curly hair then. Every salon visit ended with someone calling my hair frizzy, damaged or ‘too much’, and I believed them. My puffy, frizzy hair made me shy, and other children would tuck pen caps, paper or dry leaves into it without me noticing until someone laughed. It became one of my biggest insecurities.
Becoming an actor made me realise I wasn’t alone and that generations of girls had carried the same story. I slowly understood my hair wasn’t damaged; it had simply been treated wrongly. Early in my career, I believed straight, silky hair was the only acceptable kind and repeatedly straightened mine, damaging it so badly that I woke up to broken strands on my pillow. I cried over what was left and eventually had a big chop.
That became my turning point. I chose to protect my hair, even wearing wigs for roles requiring straight hair. Today, I don’t just tolerate it, I love it. My care is gentle and unhurried: I detangle only while washing, use oil, massage it in, let it sit, wash it out and follow my curly-girl routine. There is no aggression anymore, only patience.
How do you look at the evolution of Anupama the actor?
I was 18 when I did Premam; I’m 30 now, so a lot of that difference is what time does. But if I had to point to a single turning point, it was my short film, Freedom at Midnight (2021). It was then that people stopped seeing me as the girl standing beside the lead in Premam and started seeing a woman who could carry a story on her own.
That’s when the meatier, more layered roles began finding me. I’m genuinely fortunate to be in a position where I get to choose between such different kinds of characters, keep getting a mix of commercial films and content-driven ones in the same breath. It’s a good place to stand, and I don’t take it for granted.
What has each industry taught you about yourself as an actor?
I've done a Kannada film too, with Puneeth Rajkumar sir, so that makes it four industries now. Premam was the first, in Malayalam, that's when the world saw me for the first time, though I wasn't really an actor yet. I was just an excited, nervous girl on a film set for the first time, wide-eyed, watching the camera, the crew, this entire world I hadn't known existed.
My second film was in Telugu, and I did three back-to-back there while also shooting a Tamil film and a Kannada one alongside. What changes from industry to industry, I think, is how you learn to read people. Language itself shapes performance; the way emotion gets pulled out of you in Malayalam cinema is a different muscle from what Tamil, Telugu or Kannada ask of you.
I never consciously sat down and catalogued what each industry taught me. But whatever I am today, as a person as much as a professional, this profession built it and not only the acting part of me. Playing different women in different languages makes you empathise with lives that aren't yours, and somewhere along the way, that teaches you a lot as well.
What draws you towards a role today?
There are really two things I’m weighing — the character and the story. Sometimes I sign on purely because the character gives me so much to perform with. Other times, even if the part is smaller or the screen time is limited, I’ll still say yes because the story itself deserves to exist, deserves to be told. And then, on the rare occasion, both align, which is a character with real depth and a story worth telling, with enough room in it for me to explore something I haven’t attempted before.
Your performances often have a certain naturalness to them. How much of that comes from your own personality?
That's such a kind thing to say, thank you. I've always chased authenticity over performance for its own sake, so I put real work into understanding whoever I'm playing, like her thought process, her upbringing, the small things that built her. If she's a doctor, I'm thinking about where her empathy comes from, not just how she wears a stethoscope.
Every character does carry a sliver of me somewhere in it; I can't avoid that. But I try hard not to let too much of myself bleed in, because then everyone I play starts looking like the same person wearing different clothes. I don't know how successful I've been at holding that line, but if someone watches and finds her relatable, I've done my job.
Which of your performances has been the most challenging one?
Tillu Square was my hardest role, not only because of how Lilly was written, but because of how she was dressed. I come from a conservative home in a small town in Thrissur, Kerala. I remember my mother’s friend calling her after seeing me in a kurta and jeans where the kurta wasn’t that long enough. I grew up in a world where sleeveless clothes were a scandal, and I only started wearing them after I began acting. So playing Lilly was a huge shift. Even on set, I wasn’t comfortable in sleeveless outfits or short dresses because I wasn’t confident in my body or the clothes. Usually, costumes give me energy and help me settle into a character, but that ease was missing for a long time. I knew Lilly was strong and unlike anyone I’d played, but I kept anticipating backlash and second-guessing myself. That noise made it difficult to act freely, which is why Tillu Square remains my hardest role.
What’s more on the plate?
Quite a lot, actually. I’m exploring some very different characters right now. I’ll be stepping into another language and another industry soon, too, though I can’t get into specifics on anything I’ve just signed. Two Telugu films are releasing, and a few more I’ve committed to beyond that. I’m excited and honestly a little nervous, because juggling multiple industries and languages at once is going to get hectic fast. But it’s the good kind of chaos. I feel like I’ve fallen back in love with this profession all over again. I’m genuinely pumped for everything the coming year has lined up.
Hair-itage of champi
Years ago, I remember seeing a post by Anupama Parameswaran about being bullied for her hair as a teenager. She had grown up believing that 'nice' hair had to be straight and silky, and that anything else was embarrassing. Years later, seeing herself in Premam, she realised her hair was beautiful for the first time. I had a similar experience with my deeper skin tone and years of 'helpful tips' from relatives. At indē wild, we say, 'Difference is our superpower,' and Anupama’s story embodies that belief. Much of what we say about champi comes from my own lived experience, but the beauty of the ritual is that it has never belonged to just me. Just as there’s the Khosla champi, there is the Parameswaran champi, and a million others. Champi is sacred to so many families, and this is an opportunity to see the ritual through their eyes.
Diipa Khosla, founder of indē wild