Hi, Chechi! This is how people call me and I love it. The movie was fantastic,” says a delighted Tanushree Ghosh, who played Madhurima in Ee Adutha Kaalathu . The urbane woman who played the rich wife with a past and who almost played into the hands of a fraudster who addressed her as Chechi was a plum role. The Bengali actor's first foray into Malayalam earned her plaudits.
“Every character in this movie had a definite role and take that character away and the story does not go on. The crew was young, determined and there was a lot of motivation,” Tanushree says of her maiden venture in Mollywood. Though she entered Bengali cinema some years ago, she moved to Mumbai in search of pastures new.
She was born and brought up in Kolkata and the influence of her father, who runs a ‘small music school', seems great. “Of course I sing, but acting is what I have always wanted to do. In this movie, the teamwork was amazing and I wish I knew the language better. I have not done any course in acting, but I believe that no one can really teach you how to act. It must be within you. Look at the great actors of the age gone by. No one taught them acting,” Tanushree mused as she dressed up for a show in Thiruvananthapuram. “I am doing a few dances and yes, there's a couple of Malayalam film offers but nothing concrete yet,” she says in a telephonic interview. The commerce graduate confesses she loves Math.
Director Arun Kumar Aravind says though Tanushree did not dub herself, she took pains to understand the situation, got the dialogues written out in English and got right into the character. “The script was written with no actor in perspective. Only after that did Murali and me sit together to do the casting. We thought Tanushree would fit this character and she proved it right,” he said. The perfect casting helped make Ee Adutha Kaalathu a big hit with all sections of viewers.
But what Tanushree is scared of is being typecast. “I want to do all sorts of characters, not only urban ones. I am doing an English cinema with a German actor and the milieu is Bengali.”
Tanushree Ghosh seems at home in Bengal and Kerala. Loving the fish curry common to both states and the sari, which she loves.