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Life sans makeup

Photo: Nagara Gopal

ACTION! Sameera Reddy says its liberating to take off the greasepaint

“This has been one of my best years and I doubt if 2010 can match up to it.” gushes Sameera Reddy, still flush from her success in “Vaaranam Aayiram” . “Don’t write me off from Telugu films yet, though,” she laughs. She was in Hyderabad recently to discuss film projects. “Acting in a Telugu film now and then makes me feel closer to my roots,” she explains.

At the moment, there is more emphasis on Hindi and Tamil films, though. First to release will be Priyadarshan’s “De Dhana Dhan”. The film’s promotional campaign has been riding on Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif and Sameera maintains, “Akki and Katrina have together delivered big hits. It’s up to the producer to decide the promotional strategy. There are 27 characters in the film and I am paired with Suniel Shetty. Before ‘Race’, I never thought I had a flair for comedy. I think I’ve a better job in ‘De Dhana Dhan’.”

She remembers Priyadarshan’s moment of glory while they were shooting in Karaikudi. “When he got the call stating that he was chosen for the National Award, we went nuts. He did an outstanding job in ‘Kanchivaram’. I’m amazed how he shifts gears while directing comedies,” says Sameera. After this comic caper, Sameera will shift gears too with no-nonsense characters in “Red Alert” and “Yeh Hosla”. In “Red Alert”, which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, she says, “I play a character who gets raped by police and then joins the naxalites.”

Nagesh Kukunoor’s “Yeh Hosla”, she says, “is my best film so far. We shot for two months in Rajasthan. Nagesh is such a task master. I had lost weight for the role of a slum dweller.”

The characters in “Red Alert” and “Yeh Hosla” warranted that she went de-glam.

Reflecting on her Bengali film “Kaal Purush”, where she first appeared sans makeup, she says, “A lot of actresses hesitate to go de-glam. I felt liberated.

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