She’s a Delhi girl at heart, being a typical Punjabi. But she was born and brought up in Mumbai. Meet Salony Luthra, the latest actor to climb the Kollywood bandwagon, with Thirukumraran Entertainment’s Sarabham. Chatting with Salony, CE finds out that she’s loving her sojourn in the South.
All the world’s a stage
I was into theatre and moved to Delhi to take it up more seriously. I did acting workshops with the renowned theatre guru NK Sharma and acted in many plays. I wanted to join the National School of Drama but films happened instead.
Southbound
I’ve done several TVCs and someone saw my photos and recommended my name to the producers of Sarabham. I had heard about their film Pizza being remade in Hindi, so I decided to go for the audition. Language is no barrier, as long as you can make people laugh and cry as an actor. I was surprised that the audition was very brief. Apparently, they had already auditioned over a hundred girls, but found that my personality suited the character.
Girl power on sets
I attended a workshop to rehearse for the character. On some days I would literally cry , looking at the long Tamil dialogues I had to mug up! ( laughs). But it was a wonderful young team and they made me feel so comfortable that I felt right at home. In fact, it was only after a few days that I realised I was the only girl in the unit of about 150. But I never felt alienated or alone.
Sweet delight
One of the best things about shooting here was the idli-sambar I could gorge on every day. The new dish I’m hooked to is Pongal. It’s very heavy I know, but it was part of my daily diet. In fact, I didn’t believe my ears when the director told me I was too thin and had to put on weight. I thought he was joking. But he meant it. Every day, they would feed me ice creams and sweets on the sets.
The right place for a performer
I feel Kollywood is just the perfect place for me, since I want to do performance-oriented roles. The stories here have something to convey. I’ve been watching films like Thegidi, Soodhu Kavvum and others. I want to do more Tamil films after Sarabham.