Shraddha Srinath, “I wanted to play a complex character like Mitra”

Shraddha Srinath  who has played the lead in Tamil, Telugu,Malayalam and  Hindi films, is currently being seen in the Tamil hit Irugapatru. She  speaks to Subhash K Jha on  the film and her career so far.

Another sparkling performance from you in Irugapatru..what made you say yes to this one?

I chose to play Mitra because I found her very complex. She, like many of us comes from childhood trauma. I feel like it’s easy to dismiss emotionally complex people. One usually doesn’t have the patience to deal with them. But I wanted to play a complex character like Mitra and play it with so much earnestness that the audience empathise with her, see her point of view too. For me it was like an experiment. I was curious to see if people would connect with her or completely dissociate from her.

Tell me about how this project about troubled marriages evolved?

I received a call from Prabhu sir, the producer, asking me to hear out a narration from the director. Now, Potential Studios are known to back some very interesting scripts and they were on my list of people to work with, so I was instantly drawn to the idea of this collaboration. I was narrated the story by director Yuvaraj and I loved my character. And when you have good producers in this mix, putting their money on a story like this, your faith in the project also gets reinforced. You know it’s in the right hands. Pairing up with Vikram Prabhu was also a huge draw.

You play a marriage counsellor in Irugapatru..do you think marriage as institution is losing its relevance?

The cynic in me feels this way. On the one hand I feel like one should do everything to save a marriage and/or a relationship (and I do films that propagate this idea). On the other hand I have friends who are going through divorce and I wholeheartedly support their decision because I have come to realise that sometimes nothing can save a marriage and the only thing we owe to ourselves is our happiness. BUT there is so much taboo surrounding divorce. In the end, marriage and divorce are manmade concepts. We should stop viewing them with such a critical moral lens. We have seen unhappy marriages last for decades. Growing up, there used to be so much hype and pressure around marriages and getting married. It still exists, but today it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter if you marry late, marry and divorce, marry for the second time, marry younger or older or not marry at all. There is place for everyone. Everyone deserves to be happy and make decisions regardless of “log kya kahenge”.

 Was it easy for you to break into the film industry?

It was pure luck. I got the film  U-turn because my friend pointed out the audition call to me and of course I did well in the audition and the director saw the character in me. Again, Pawan Kumar , the director of U-turn is also a new-age filmmaker, very indie in his style, so the expectations he had from me was to just perform well. U turn became a big hit and there was curiosity around this new actress was breaking norm and one thing lead to another. My work and discipline became my trademark and that got me more work. I would say mine is the best case scenario for an actor with no contacts in the industry.

Your forthcoming projects?

I have a big release in Telugu releasing on Pongal, 2024 – Saindhav. There’s two more in Telugu films which are being shot but unannounced. There is also a web series I’ve signed in Tamil, details of which will be announced by the producers soon.I also have a project in Hindi produced  by Lionsgate with Neetu Kapoorji  and Sunny Kaushal as  my co-stars.