The Thanmatra girl is tired of doing roles ‘not her age'. Wearing a mini skirt and showing off her figure, Meera Vasudevan (“I am Meera Vasudevan, not Vasudev”, she says, pointing out that much of the media gets her surname spelt wrong) walks in for the interview with her mother Hemalatha. Her husky voice and warm attitude is far from Lekha, the homemaker she portrayed in Thanmathra, a few years ago. “ I had put on some 25 kg for that role. I took off the kilos, after the shoot, working out long hours. The boy who played my son was just a few yeas younger than me. Now, I want to do younger roles and yes, glamorous too. I really have to thank Blessy Sir for giving me that meaty role, but after that I have had to turn down so many roles only because I did not want to do any more ‘mature' roles (read older). I want to work with directors in young roles, that are more my age,” says the psychology-English graduate, the other Meera, who breezed into movies, playing the lead opposite Milind Soman in the Hindi ‘Rules: Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula' in 2003. Meera has always been seriously into modelling even before movies happened. Pilsbury, Surf, Fair and Lovely, De Beers…so goes the list of her assignments. She will continue to do brand endorsements along with movies, she has decided.
Now, she has her fingers crossed. Next month, her movie, ‘Sahapaadhi 1975' is scheduled to be released. Playing the female lead, Krishnapriya, opposite Vineet Kumar, the film, directed by John Ditto, has Manoj K Jayan doing a major role. Does this title and the year, 1975 ring a bell? It's a political love story, says Meera.
Another Malayalam movie she's working in has Indrajit playing opposite her. It's directed by Anil and Meera plays Jagathy's daughter. “In Thanmatra, he was my character, Lekha's husband's friend, remember?,” she says, pointing out how she is graduating to younger roles. Her oeuvre till now consists of three Hindi films, five Malayalam, including ‘Vairam' and four Tamil movies including ‘Unnai Saranadainthen'. She is currently doing a movie, ‘Atta Nayagan' in Tamil too.
For a period, Meera did Tamil serials, ‘Suryavamsam' and ‘Penn'. Modelling is what she has continued to do throughout her career. “I want to act with Mammukka, (Mammootty), Asif Ali, Dileep, Jayaram, Kailash and do movies directed by Ranji Panikkar, Amal Neerad and Joshi,” she gives a dream-list.
The transformation is already happening, she believes, for to her, it was ‘a sort of punishment' that she was offered only maternal roles after ‘Thanmatra'. At last, her career is looking up, she feels. What else? The Mumbai-based Meera would love to do negative roles and also action roles like police characters, roles like those done by Vijayashanthi.
She is getting herself equipped for that. How? Ah….she is learning kick boxing. It's good for her figure and career. Guess who she is practising kick-boxing with? John Kokken, her good friend, she says.
