A film’s success is a team effort and sometimes a character artiste goes a long way in adding value to a key episode or a scene. Sunaina Badam, known for her powerful role in Ammoru as a child artiste, has played Rajendra Prasad’s daughter in the recently released Oh! Baby , and brought the house down with her hilarious and realistic performance which runs intermittently in the movie.
She was a household name with her Frustrated woman video series on her YouTube channel Khelpedia which has over three lakh subscribers. Having acted as a child in films, Sunaina was not very sure if she’d want to return to films. Pregnant during the making of her first video, she chose, after informing her employers, that she would work mostly from home. The videos were an instant hit and she completed 60 episodes. “Along with bouquets, I got flak too. People insinuated that the rant was a reflection of the frustration I was going though in my personal life. I steered clear of any negativity and sailed through, with the immense support of my husband. Amidst all this, director Nandini Reddy offered me Kalyana Vaibhogame and I gave her many reasons as to why I didn’t want to do it. This time, she wouldn’t take a no for an answer and said I could tag my son to the shoot if I wanted but I must take up the role in Oh! Baby . I am so glad she insisted and I took it up,” says Sunaina.
Sunaina is the youngest of three children in her family; the the gap between her eldest brother and her is nearly 20 years. Yet she was never a pampered child, she says, and always knew what was right, having been a child artiste and observing the film world closely. Though Usha Kiron Movies cast her as Tarun’s sister in Manasu Mamatha , it’s Kodi Ramakrishna’s Ammoru that brought her fame. She did 25 films and after Bala Ramayanam , she didn’t take up any project. Ask her if she didn’t want to return as a heroine, she sounds philosophical. “May be my re-entry is destined this way and if I had tried as a heroine then, I might not have succeeded. I strongly believe that god designs our future. I always wanted to be known as an artiste and not a heroine per se. I completed MBA and married my friend who was a senior in college. I worked for a year in a regular 9 to 5 job but in that one year I made all the excuses in the world to abstain from work. My heart was never in the right place. There were jobs I took up and quit within weeks. At that point I tried dubbing and then bumped into people who introduced me to digital media.”
She adds, “I had my child after many years of waiting and wanted to bring him up on my own and never leave him for a minute. So when Oh! Baby was offered, I was thinking about my child, didn’t want to leave him with anyone when I would go to work. My husband took leave from work and in-laws stepped in to help and offered unconditional support. I am happy when people are calling and praising me for my role.”
To a question on the brief given by Nandini Reddy on the character she was to play, Sunaina says that Anasuya is Rajendra Prasad’s daughter and his only child. She was meant to be very possessive and when the old lady Bebakka (his friend) leaves him, she’s delighted. Her happiness is short lived when Bebakka returns in the form of Baby and Anasuya does all she can to evict her from the house but her father will have none of that and wants to leave his daughter instead. “A woman is always possessive, about her father before her marriage, her husband later on and then she latches on to her son. Very few understand it,” explains Sunaina.
She recalls, “Nandini, Samantha and Rajendra Prasad appreciated me. I can’t do anything other than writing and acting and so I gave it all my best. I didn’t realise there is respect and madness for acting till I stayed away from it for a few years. I now want to die as an actor. I worked for six days and it was like a breeze. I am not going to throw away the success I got from Oh! Baby and will not do comic roles immediately. I want variety and I want to work with a huge list of actors and directors I have on mind. I want to portray characters that are remembered forever.”
