Trisha is in Bangalore and is on her journey of discovery of Sandalwood. She is on the sets of her first Kannada film, a remake of the Telugu flick, Dokudu, opposite Puneeth Rajkumar. “This is my second schedule (here) and I don’t find it too different from the way Kollywood works. In fact, working here has its advantages because I know most of the people. I had worked with some from the team for another south film. It’s Puneeth and the language that I am new to. It helps that audiences here are receptive to Tamil and Telugu actors. Everyone seems to watch every language film and that has only made my job easier,” she says.
Sandalwood is often the last stop on the regional circuit of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Trisha begs to differ. “I can’t generalise for all heroines, but in my case, I feel that for the first five-six years of your career, you get busy establishing yourself in the market and during that time it is difficult to do films in different languages at once. I used to concentrate on Tamil at one point and Telugu at another. Then, I had to kind of balance the both out and that itself took a lot of time with back-to-back projects. It is not like now, when I can pick and choose. There were many offers (Kannada) in the past but those fell through because of dates and logistics. I feel there is a right time for everything,” she explains.
With Trisha’s current stature in the industry, her preference for films and the number of productions she’s part of have also changed. “I can’t be doing the same roles again and again. Not only will I get stuck in a rut, the boredom will pass on to the audience too. I don’t mean to say that I am only looking at heroine-oriented scripts. But now, a film has to really excite me. I am done with mediocre, run-of-the-mill films. Those I would have done two to three years ago, just to maintain my image. Today I can sit back and afford to take two months off and do something that I feel passionately about,” says Trisha. The actress is candid when she says in the industry can often trap free thought. “As an actress, I have to have a hit. I can’t be doing films that please me all the time, I have to do films that please the fans. In one of my last films, Mankatha, I had a very small role to play but I thought I needed that movie at that point of time. At the same time, I did Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya after that, where I completely took over.”
Does she regret that she hasn’t yet worked with a certain star? “I wouldn’t call it a regret but, yes, of course, Rajini Sir, who wouldn’t want to work with a superstar like him. That is one thing I really hope to do before I put an end to my career,” says Trisha who will have two summer releases. “I have Bhoologam and my first Kannada film releases around the same time.”