Hyderabad: She wasn’t easy to overlook as the young, feisty Malathi in Nagesh Kukunoor’s Rockford. Now, the 27-year-old Hyderabadi girl, Ulrika, daughter of Dr Kiran and Dr Sudhakar Krishnamurti, will catch many an eye once again in an independent film called The Anushree Experiments, which was shot in the city in just 17 days.
Talking about her role, Ulrika says, “Anushree is a young girl who underestimates herself and hasn’t found what gets her ticking. She is in her final year of engineering and her parents want to get her married. The film is about how she deals with these two equally daunting circumstances.”
She adds: “Shooting the film in 17 days was no mean feat. We shot for several hours per day, at all kinds of unpredictable locations. There were days when I would have to climb trees, jump walls, chase buses, ride bikes, change in and out of 10 different costumes and hair styles, all in the same day and all while staying true to Anushree. I totally loved it.”
Ulrika began her training as an actor soon after graduating from university, in Chicago, then in London and Los Angeles. She admits to have “discovered a mad love for the craft through her acting training.”
The actress is in awe of Aparna Malladi, her director, who had to struggle a great deal to finish the movie. “Aparna Malladi embodies a kind of unbelievable strength and true indomitable spirit. I feel blessed to have crossed paths with her.
Basically, we’d show up every morning and allow Aparna’s energy to permeate the sets, without realising that this was why the magic was happening!” she shares.
Ulrika never thought of becoming an actor. While she was growing up, she dreamt of becoming a “cool scientist”.
With both her parents being doctors, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Ulrika, who now stays in London, talks about her days in Hyderabad.
“I grew up in Hyderabad, studied in Gitanjali School till Class X, and then went to the Hyderabad Public School. My parents, who are doctors, always encouraged me to explore. I tried a lot of different things including auditioning for and acting in Rockford.”
She adds, “I had always aspired to be a cool scientist. I was on the path to study neuroscience, before I got massively bitten by a giant acting ‘tarantula’. I’m still not ruling out that option.”
Shifting the focus back to The Anushree Experiments, Ulrika shares what made her do the movie, though she knew that it was based on crowd-funding and would take a little too long to release.
“It’s a clever script by a clever woman about a clever woman who doesn’t realise just how clever she is. Which clever woman would say no to it? Anushree is special to me because she is from Hyderabad; she has grown up where I have. I got to stay at home with my family during the shoot, which I haven’t done in over 10 years, so that was a huge bonus,” says Ulrika, who reported on the sets two days after her wedding.
She says that being married didn’t stop her from pursuing her career in acting. “I’ve known my husband Gaurav for ages and he’s seen my creative interests develop from the very nascent stages. We’re on the same page, which is incredibly valuable and fun.”
The movie’s shooting had started more than a year back, but it is yet to see the light of the day. “The world of independent films is tricky and we’ve faced the challenges that almost all indie filmmakers experience. But patience and hard work prevail. The film is nearly ready now and there will be a preview in July,” justifies Ulrika.
Talking about her future projects, Ulrika says, “I recently worked on Farrukh Dhondy’s stage adaptation of Devdas, where I played Paro; an American play called Commencing, and a British feature where I play a British-Indian girl. I want to play a thousand different characters!”
