Nine years on in the industry, Nithya Menen has a reputation. A good one.
She is the instinctive actor who can add layers to even a two-line character. Take the recent eponymous cameo in the 2018 Telugu hit Geetha Govindam, for instance. Or Bangalore Days, Anjali Menon’s 2014 romantic drama, where her character Natasha’s presence is felt right through the narrative.
As for full-length roles, it cannot get more challenging than last month’s Praana, the multilingual psychological thriller that saw her in a solo act. The film, shot simultaneously in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, saw her enacting each scene in all four languages!
Next up are two Malayalam films – Kolambi and a sports film with Kunchacko Boban. There is also a project with Mysskin and what everyone is waiting for, the Jayalalithaa biopic. But first, Nithya makes her digital debut, with Season 2 of Breathe on Amazon Prime.
No compromises
“Amazon Prime’s Breathe came at a time when Indian-made web series had not really taken off. I had seen its out-of-the-box posters. When I got the opportunity to do Season 2, my gut feeling told me to take it up,” begins Nithya, whose co-stars include Abhishek Bachchan and Amit Sadh.
Nithya Menen believes the digital streaming platforms are a no-compromise avenue for artistes, unlike mainstream films.
While she cannot divulge much about her role, she is clearly thrilled to go digital. “It’s perfect for me as an artiste. There are a whole lot more hours of content, and so much more space and time to explore each character and allow it to breathe, pun unintended,” says the actor who, in her late 20s, has at least 50 films to her credit.
It helps that everything is very “content driven”. The OTT space has helped many actors find artistic satisfaction, and it looks like Nithya is no different. “I love that we are catering to a more intelligent audience and don’t have to compromise on anything. I can be exactly who I am.”
- She hopes to catch Season 1 of Breathe, and the second season of a show she loved, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. “That’s my kind of show, it was beautiful. That’s the kind of stuff I want to do.”
Nithya has often maintained that she struggles in conventional arenas and does not really “fit in”. Breathe, with the synergy on sets and everyone pitching in, is an opportunity, she believes, for her to showcase her acting range.
Often “chasing content”, it isn’t always fame and success at the box office that drives her. Praana, for instance, received love from critics, but not as much from the masses. Her reason for doing the film was academic, she says.
“As an artiste, it is exciting to do a one-actor film… we knew it was not a mass film, we got great reviews and we would have liked for more people to have watched it… it is a pathbreaker.”
Stardom not priority
We talk about another of her projects that she has just finished filming, Mission Mangal. About how scientists in ISRO beat all odds and rode on indigenous solutions to send a spacecraft to Mars.
- While Nithya uses her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to let followers know what she’s working on, and share “happy stuff”, she does not really engage with people there. Trying not to get too involved online is also a form of self-preservation, she admits.
- “I want to be me, not Nithya the actress. Even now, I give a lot of myself to a role, and so I recuperate when not shooting. I need to recharge my batteries. I need to connect to myself, to nature. I draw my energy from them.”
“They [scientists] adopted unconventional methods, and that makes for an interesting premise for a film,” says Nithya, who plays satellite designer Varsha Pillai, and is joined by a big cast.
“This team, be it Akshay Kumar, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha, Vidya Balan, Kirti Kulhari or Sharman [Joshi], has been very down-to-earth. We had a wonderful group dynamic and it felt like we were together, working on a mission. We would come by in the morning, know what desk to take, our vanity vans bore our character names…,” she recalls.
Her priority, she continues, is to work with people who are good in their craft. “Luckily, for me, I don’t naturally think in terms of stardom. It’s never been important. My concern is if I’m feeling nourished with this experience. The rest does not register.”