Actor Princy Sudhakaran is on cloud nine and maybe a little overwhelmed. When Mumbai Diaries 26/11 started airing on Amazon Prime, she didn’t expect her small yet pivotal role to get such a warm welcome.
“I’m getting messages even from strangers. That has never happened before. It is comforting to know they remember your character and took time out to write an appreciation,” Princy says over the phone from Mumbai. She plays a Malayali nurse Anju Varghese in the medical thriller.
“My first movie Palki was Indo-Canadian and was only released in Canada. The second movie, The Last Color, directed by Chef Vikas Khanna, was released initially in film festivals. So, this is my first role to get a pan-India release,” she says.
Though she is relatively a beginner in Bollywood, she is an experienced theatre artist. She studied Bharathanatyam during school. After school, she joined engineering and got busy planning out her career. But after finishing college, she had the epiphany that something was missing. “Acting has always been a passion for me. So, I thought I will try to follow my passion while working, “ she says.
One weekend, she visited the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. “There were many posters about upcoming workshops and one of them was perfect for me to join after work,” she says.
After the workshop, she joined the theatre troupe and started acting in their production. This was around seven years ago. “My family was very reluctant with my career choice. I was suddenly leaving behind a secure job as a software engineer to pursue acting,” she quips.
According to Princy, with hard work and a little luck, anyone can achieve their dream. With little formal education in acting and hailing from a family that had no connection with the industry, Princy wrote her own destiny. “It was very challenging, a period of uncertainty,” she says. But her role in Mumbai Diaries 26/11 has finally caught the eye of the audience.
“I approach every role seriously. I try to discuss with the writers and directors what their idea of the role is. I don’t treat my characters the same way — be it movie or theatre,” she says.