People think my life is easy: Hansika

Hansika, whose Manithan released this Friday, says being a successful heroine is more than just being pretty

April 30, 2016 03:09 pm | Updated 03:09 pm IST

Hansika, at just 24, is already a veteran actress. Starting her acting career in television back in 2001, she’s already got over 14 years of experience to the point where she’s “never got the chance to think about an alternative career”.

Not that she’s ever had a reason to complain. “When people my age have just started looking for jobs, I’ve already bought my own house and a car. But acting has given me more than that. Every day is special and different. How many jobs give you that?”

But her roles don’t seem to have the same kind of variety. “ Manithan was different, wasn’t it?” she asks, “It wasn’t the typical bubbly role I’ve usually played. It’s my character that lends the hero the support he needs in his pursuit.”

Either way, she says she’s very secure about the roles she’s being offered and with her career. “But I see how being insecure helps in the industry… I just was never that type. I keep getting asked if I have a dream role. Instead of dreaming about someone else’s roles and performances, I’d rather people say ‘I want roles like the ones Hansika gets’.”

This is why she says she’s been working so hard, for so long. “Most people assume a heroine’s life is easy… they think it’s just about looking pretty. We get complimented like there’s no tomorrow, but they never seem to want to hear about the hard work that goes into our profession.”

But a younger Hansika wasn’t always this hardworking, “at least not in school”. “I was always the type who’d study last-minute… right before the exams,” she says, adding, “I didn’t want to embarrass my mother by bringing home bad grades, so I’d always study just enough to make her happy. I was quite the brat.”

Though she admits acting was more fun as a child, she believes she was cut out for the profession because she loves being among people. “There aren’t many places where I don’t get recognised… not anymore. Even in Oman, recently, a lot of people came up to me because they noticed me. I’m not one to need a lot of bodyguards around me when I go for a function. I want people to be able to come up to me and take a picture with me… though I’m not a big fan of taking selfies. You’re always worried how someone could misuse it.”

But that’s just an occupational hazard, she says. When asked about another such hazard, she lists a funnier one. Living away from home back in Mumbai too has had its effects. “My Bombay friends now tell me I have a Tamil slang when I speak in English,” she says. “I was a bit shocked myself when I said ‘ appadiya ?’, instead of, say, ‘oh really?’.”

Not that this transformation surprised her mother.

“She keeps telling me how I should have been born in a south Indian household. I still go to a small south Indian restaurant that I used to go to right from childhood, and I would always take either idli or dosa to school for tiffin. In fact, my classmates called me idli vali.

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