Dreamers become realists when they act on their dreams. For actor Meenakshi Jayan, dreaming of a career in films and finally standing on the Shanghai International Film Festival stage, holding the Golden Goblet Award for Best Actress and thanking the audience in Chinese, was the moment when dreams became reality. Many would be familiar with her voice as Dia from the popular Malayalam movie Aanandam. But now, her face is equally familiar, with her debut role in Victoria gaining international acclaim with this award. “It was very unexpected. I froze for a second when they announced my name. It was the same stage and trophy, even the same regal feeling I dreamt of. I am such a crazy dreamer. I want to do a lot. This is just the beginning,” she shares.
Jayan, who often visits Bengaluru, calls it her comfort space where she finds an escape from the chaos of life. “Bengaluru is my comfort space where I can be happy and do anything. No one asks me anything; I’ll be inside a cute apartment and just live my life slowly here,” she shares. She also frequented the city a lot while trying to get her big break, backed by nothing but her passion. “As a child, I was always told that I was unattractive. I was always backstage, writing scripts or dubbing for actors. In college, I started feeling confident in my body and decided to be an actor. I worked in ad films as an Assistant Director and did small dubbing gigs to earn money. I used to save this money to attend online acting workshops – it gave me the initial education about acting,” she says. Actors Shobana and Shah Rukh Khan were her early idols.
Her approach to becoming Victoria was a journey in itself. “They needed someone with an Angamaly accent, so I went to Angamaly, hung around, and spoke with a lot of people to understand the language. I even learned threading, waxing, and pedicure for the character,” Jayan shares, adding, “But I saw the real challenge during shooting. Most of the scenes were long takes. We rehearsed from morning to evening and shot in the evening. If someone made a small mistake, we had to start over again. It was fun and exciting, but very difficult to pull off.”
Crediting the director with moulding her to become the character, she says. “Any awards that comes for this film goes to the director, because for a woman to receive a character which has depth is a rare phenomenon. To get that in your debut is very rare. And I’m grateful to Sivaranjini for getting that in my debut film.”
Looking ahead, she wants to continue growing as an artiste. “Until I’m 80 or 90, I want to still be trying to be a better actor. I want to travel through my films, see the world, and help new filmmakers. I want to make good films with creatively charged friends which inspire people, make them laugh, cry, and smile,” she says. Her vision is clear. “I don’t want to get carried away with any success or any accolade I get in the future. It will all be just a cute star in the sky that I want to build,” she humbly states.