At just 22 and having done four films, Ritika Singh already has a National Award in her hands. But in her head, she has prepared herself for an inevitable fall from success. “I’ve (thankfully) not had a film that hasn’t done well. But I’m sure that will happen. I’ve been in the boxing ring, taking punches to my face. I’ve always got back up,” she says. “Even in school, I was that kid others tried to pull down because I was naughty and did well in sports and academics. Life has trained me well.”
Ritika’s first film, Irudhi Suttru , a bilingual drama about a boxer from the slums, received rave reviews. She recently acted in its Telugu remake, Guru , along with Daggubati Venkatesh. “It was almost the same experience, because we had almost the same unit working with us. But the Hyderabad crowd is so celeb-crazy.”
At malls and coffee shops, Ritika does get recognised and they often come along with selfie requests. “But they’re not invasive. They are well-behaved most of the time.” What about back in Mumbai? “The industry knows me, but not the public. Because Saala Khadoos ( Irudhi Suttru ’s Hindi version) was not as successful as the Tamil film.”
She does find a stark difference between the way things are in Bollywood and Kollywood. “The Tamil audience has accepted me and given me a place to establish myself. I’m not taking things for granted… I’ve learnt the language. Tamil nalla puriyum… nalla pesaren .”
Keeping it real
On social media, she says her followers are inspired by how she keeps it simple and real. “I do my own make-up, even when I have to attend all these film events. When I start thinking too much about what I have to wear or how I should look, the people in Kollywood say: ‘You’re in a place where people have accepted you for who you really are. And that’s a privilege. ’ That was a really good piece of advice.”
Ritika’s next, P Vasu’s Shivalinga , is probably her first full-blown commercial outing. She says when she first heard the narration, she found it engaging, but had doubts whether she could pull it off. “I talked to my mother. This was a character who becomes a ghost. There was dancing. How would I be able to pull this off? I was panicking. My mom said since I’m so afraid of it, I should definitely give it a shot.”
Sound advice
After that is Vanangamudi , where she will be seen playing Arvind Swamy’s love interest. While meeting him for the first time, Ritika says she wanted to be extra careful. But it was Swamy who surprised her. “I generally feel uncomfortable with people who are older than me. On the first day of shooting, I had to get all romantic with him… touch his face. And I was jittery. He said, ‘Ritika, don’t judge yourself for doing this. We need to do what actors need to do. If you have to touch my face or play with my hair, do it. I won’t judge you for it’.”
There are compromises an actor must make in her career. She remembers a Koffee with Karan episode featuring Shah Rukh Khan and Alia Bhatt (who she looks up to), where Khan advises young actors to take up “bad roles” so they get a taste of everything. “But I don’t want to do the bad stuff.”
