Actor Aishwarya Lekshmi He may have been born and raised in Kerala, but that has never stopped him from exploring other film industries. Aishwarya’s Telugu film Ammu premiered today on Amazon Prime Video. Before this, the actor was seen in Mani Ratnam’s Tamil magnum opus. Ponniyin Selvan 1 like Poonguzhali. Aishwarya says that after her Telugu debut with Godse earlier this year, she has become confident with the Telugu language.
Aishwarya’s Ammu is a revenge thriller about a woman who is a victim of domestic abuse. Ammu is her second Telugu film of hers and she says that a good script, in any language, makes her feel greedy as an artist.
In an interview with indianexpress.com, Aishwarya Lekshmi said, “As an actor, it may be the first two years of my career, I was worried if I would be able to make it. But after Godse, I had the courage to make movies in Telugu. Language is not the thing here, emotions are universal. The story we try to tell is universal. Maybe there are some stories that are ingrained but the emotions are universal. I can express myself well, even if I am Malayali or Tamilian.”
Aishwarya, who has been in several Malayalam films, added, “As far as I am concerned, I belong to Kerala, but I don’t mind anything out of the ordinary. I don’t feel out of place when I work in Hyderabad or Chennai. I feel at home. I feel as comfortable as when I work in Malayalam. Maybe at first I felt that I would have difficulty learning the language, now it is gone. I get extremely greedy when I hear a good script in any language. I just don’t think language should be a barrier for any actor.”
Directed by Charukesh Sekar, Ammu has some hard-hitting scenes depicting domestic abuse. The movie has scenes where Ammu (Aishwarya Lekshmi) is slapped by her husband (played by Naveen Chandra) several times. Aishwarya joined after reading the script, which was impressively written.
“The words used in the script were painful enough to know what the woman was going through. I then spoke with our director Charu, who is also our dialogue writer, and he was instrumental in helping me get the rhythm and tonality of the character right. She didn’t want it to feel like a performance or a performance because she wanted the audience to feel the pain that she was going through. So, I wanted it to be as real as possible,” the actor said.
For an artist, playing such a character can be exhausting. Living Ammu’s life on the sets and then feeling her anger had some effect on Aishwarya Lekshmi.
“It was very challenging, especially the domestic abuse scenes. She was very challenging mentally, especially when she actually breaks down for the first time. But I loved the revenge part. I was very happy that he finally gave it back to me because it had so much in it. The drama was very exciting,” said Aishwarya.
Aishwarya Lekshmi reveals that Ammu was shot in the same order as the story, much to her relief.
“I was very happy that we were shooting linearly. If we were shooting in the reverse order, I’m sure it would have affected me for longer. He left an impact while he was filming or it may be a week after that. I’m usually an actor who leaves my characters on sets and comes back,” the actor shared. She further explained, “I am not a method actress. Usually it never affects me. There was a scene where I couldn’t stop crying after the performance. I was crying in the scene and even after the cut, I couldn’t stop. It was very very difficult for me,” she said.
Up next for Aishwarya Lekshmi are the Malayalam films Christopher and King of Kotha. She will also be seen in the second part of Ponniyin Selvan, which will be released in 2023.
