Thousands of men and women have packed their bags and arrived in Chennai, ever since it became the hub of Tamil cinema. The chances of them making it big depend on a lot of factors — skill, good-looks, luck… and many a time, all it takes is meeting the right person at the right time. It’s in the hope of chancing upon this person, the one who will give them their big break, that aspiring actors walk from one audition to another. Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli talks about this phase in her life with a certain relief.
“I must have attended 80 to 100 auditions during the year I decided to pursue my passion for acting,” she says. A typical Chennai girl with a middle-class upbringing, she says she sailed through life without encountering that many ‘nos’. “But here I was, getting one ‘yes’ to some 20 ‘nos’ at the auditions.” But she kept at it. “I knew my day would come.”
LP, as she is known, has done a clutch of roles in movies, including Sutta Kadhai , Maya , and Kalam , which got her noticed. She’s also bagged a role under a “big banner”. Despite this, it still is not easy to come by roles, she says. But she’s nowhere near giving up. A sportswoman — she’s played cricket for the India B team and is an Ultimate Frisbee player — she says her training taught her to take success and failure in her stride. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You have to draw from rejection and become stronger.”
She also has experience in HR and has dabbled in theatre as part of Evam. It was when she was handling ticket sales at one of their productions that director Magizh Thirumeni offered her a small role in his film Mundhinam Paartheney . Curious, LP took a day’s leave to see what the film world was all about.
It was not love at first sight. The clapboard that went ‘clack’ inches from her face made her laugh; the hours of waiting at the shooting spot to be called made her impatient; all eyes on her when she was in front of the camera made her self-conscious. “It was quite an experience,” she recalls. But there was something about it that fascinated her; to the extent that she gave up a job she loved and entered a world of uncertainty.
With zero contacts and no cinema background, LP did things the hard way. She met people from the industry every day; sat through several auditions, unfazed. Today, seated in a studio in Alwarpet, her eyes light up when she talks about cinema. “I would love to play a sportsperson some day,” she says.
“I want to become one of the best actors the industry has ever seen. Actor Shobha for instance: although she was in the field for a brief period, she continues to stay in people’s minds. I want to be remembered.”
Dusky and proud
LP is part of the #Proudofmycolour movement that’s supported by Banjara’s. She plays a basketball player in a short film — ‘Be fair to your loved ones. Stop asking them to become fair’ — that’s against colour bias. “I’m a big supporter of the campaign,” she says. “It’s something that I could relate to, because I too have faced such a bias.” She remembers friends and aunts who would call her ‘karuppi’. "It never affected me in any way,” she says.
“But I’ve seen people succumb to society’s pressures of looking fair. It shatters their confidence.” In an industry in which it’s almost a pre-requisite for a heroine to be fair-skinned, LP says she too faces discrimination. “Even in auditions, some people straightaway say that they’re looking for a fair-skinned actor. I’ve encountered make-up men who ask, ‘Madam, skin-a bright pannatta’? (Shall I brighten up your skin?)”
She adds that she insists on minimal make-up, for she believes that one should look like the character one is playing and not like an exaggerated look-alike. But she doesn’t blame the industry, for after all, it plays to the tastes of the audience. But she’s happy being who she is.
“If I have a tan, it means that I’ve had a good time outdoors,” she smiles.
