Urvashi is calm personified when congratulatory messages pour in for her sixth Kerala State Film award for Best Actor (female). She says the charge on her phone is almost nil as she has been on the call since Friday when the Kerala State awards were declared.
“I don’t think I have done anything extraordinary to win the award. Viewers kept saying that an award should be given to Urvashi chechi. They predicted I would win an award. Perhaps, that is how I got it,” says the actor.
Uravshi impressed the jury for breathing life into Leelamma, a mother grappling with grim truths after losing her son in Christo Tomy’s Ullozhukku.
How does she look back on her character, Leelamma? “It was a superb script and a wonderful role. I waited for three to four years for the film to begin. So did Christo. I liked the role, the script, the director. He was the writer as well. My only reservation was doing such a dark film for about 40-plus days.”
She expands, “I would have to be in a mournful mood for all the days of the shoot, weeping all the time. The thought of having to sustain that did make me nervous. Then I felt, this character is destined for me. With that in mind, I decided to enact Leelamma. However, I decided that I would not shed any tears at all although she is a tragic heroine.”
Urvashi and Parvathy Thiruvothu in a still in Ullozhukku. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Keeping all those grim thoughts bottled up in her during the shoot left her emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted, she says. “I realised how tough it is to weep and lament without shedding tears. If Leelamma were to cry, then I would also feel relieved of that trauma. My cheeks were aching at the end of each day after the shoot. This role was certainly a challenge.”
At the end of the 45-day schedule, she experienced fatigue like never before. “I took time to regain my composure. What help was that I had to report on the sets of Jaladhara Pump Set Since 1962 soon after. I played a completely different role in that film. That helped me recoup.
After playing the lead in K Bhagyaraj’s Mundhanai Mudichu (1983), Urvashi entered Malayalam cinema as the heroine in films such as Ethirpukkal (1984) and Ente Ammu Ninte Thulasi Avarude Chakki (1985). She ruled the marquee with a variety of roles that spanned family dramas, action thrillers, crime thrillers and rom-coms. After a break, she returned to the screen in Sathyan Anthikkad’s Achuvinte Amma (2005) and bagged the National Award for the best supporting actor.
Since then Uravshi has evolved into a scenarist and producer even while being one of the sought-after actors in Tamil and Malayalam.
Crediting her directors and writers for giving her the kind of roles that helped her showcase her acting chops, she says actors cannot choose their characters. “It is the directors’ belief in an actor that keeps them going. Their confidence imbues me with self-confidence to slip into a character’s skin. I have never, ever waited for a director to give me a certain kind of role. I have gone with the flow.”
Urvashi (file photo) | Photo Credit: Vedhan. M
She does dwell on the number of awards she has won or the range of characters she has immortalised in cinema. “Going forward, too, I don’t plan to dwell on such things. I live in the present.”
Uravshi emphasises that she never prepares for any role. “I don’t know what that is. I have no idea about auditions, workshops or rehearsals. I go to the location and do what I am told by my directors. Whatever I do when the director says ‘action’, that is my acting. That is all I know.”
Reiterating that she is a spontaneous actor, Urvashi says she finds it extremely difficult if someone were to tell her to replicate something she had done in a retake.
She points out that while many of her contemporaries got trapped in an image, she was never stereotyped. Even at the peak of her career as a heroine, Urvashi donned negative roles with aplomb. “And when I added a dash of comedy in those negative roles, my directors never stopped me. They told me that it was done well and included that in the movie.”
She recalls that in movies like Ponmuttayidunna Tharavu and Thalayanamantram, (both directed by Sathayan Anthikkad) in which she essays self-centred, flawed characters, she enacted those with her own brand of humour without aping the “vamps” of the day who used to customarily narrow their eyes or hiss while delivering their lines.
Uravshi laughs when she is reminded of her trademark fluttering of eyelashes to charm someone. “In the black and white era, I have seen heroines do that in romantic scenes. Female leads of our time could not carry off those scenes so well. So, whenever a chance came along, even as a joke, I used to try that fluttering of the eyelashes!”
Although she has portrayed women from all walks of life, Urvashi says she has never based her characters on real people. “There was no time for that when we were shooting films within 12 to 15 days. In the morning, I would be on the set of a film. We had to get ready within 10 to 15 minutes and face the camera and do what the director told us. By noon, I would have to go to another location. There would be shooting for other movies in the evening and at night. What kind of preparation could I do under those circumstances? My directors were my teachers. They had a clear vision and they gave me the freedom to improvise and interpret a character as I saw her.”
She adds, “I don’t know how to act. My directors would tell me, ‘Urvashi, just do this role naturally, as you see it’.”
Urvashi reiterates she does not overthink a character. If a role appeals to her, she agrees to be in a film. “Once I reach a location, I don’t go by age or status. I look at the person in the director’s seat and follow his/her instructions.”
“I want to act in a wide variety of roles,” she says. “Fortunately, I have always been able to access that diversity in my filmography. That is why I say I owe it to my directors and writers.”
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