Sai Pallavi, who was in Georgia pursuing a course in Medicine, got a random Facebook message from a stranger, asking her if she was interested in acting. Naturally, she assumed him to be a prankster or flirt and ignored him. Fortunately for the Malayalam audience, Alphonse Puthren, however, was determined to convince her of his authenticity and cast her in his second directorial venture Premam. Thanks to his efforts, audience have come to love the debutante’s character Malar,
“Since I hadn’t responded to his Facebook message, Alphonse found my mom’s number and called her to talk about the role. I was with her when she got the call and, as soon as I heard his name, I started telling my mother not to talk to him and to just cut the call because he is a prankster. Alphonse heard this from the other end and told my mother to ask me to Google him and that he was in fact the real Alphonse Puthren and not a prankster. It was after this that I realised he was the same guy who had directed Neram. Even though I had watched the movie, I hadn’t paid attention to the director’s name. Later, I called him and apologised profusely and ended up getting cast as Malar for the film,” says Sai, recollecting the incident.
Sai was oblivious not just to Alphonse’s fame, but also to Nivin Pauly’s charm because of her not being in touch with contemporary films. “Since I had been in Georgia for the past few years, I had no idea about any of the films that were being released and I didn’t know Nivin was such a huge star. When we met on the sets, he came to me and talked like a normal person, had no airs about him, and he was very down to earth. But once the shoot started, I noticed that there were a lot of fans hanging around the location. And then there were the women! (They were all over him!) (It was obvious they loved him!) I admitted to him that I hadn’t seen his movies and didn’t know who he was and he brought me all his films. For the first week, after the shoot, I would go home and watch one film of his every day. That’s how I found out that Nivin was such a huge sensation,” explains Sai, giggling.
Explaining about her character and herself, she says, “I am a native of Kottagiri and I was brought up in Coimbatore. Even though I’m not a professional dancer, I have always been interested in dance. I came to Georgia because pursuing Medicine in India and focusing on dancing simultaneously would have been difficult. I participated in a few reality shows and a Tango dance competition and Alphonse had found me through one of these shows. But I had never even thought about acting. But Alphonse was convinced that I could pull off the role and told me to wait till the movie comes out to see for myself. Yet I never expected this huge a reception! I think no matter who was cast as that character, the audience would have accepted her the same way because it was written so beautifully. I still don’t think I can call myself an actress. I didn’t act, I just behaved like myself on screen.”
Is she considering an acting career now? “I don’t know. I want to complete my studies in Medicine, so I’m going to be here for a year. Maybe if I get a good offer I might try it. To tell you the truth, I’m scared. After watching the movie, so many people have written to me asking me not to act in any more movies because they can never picture me as another character. It just shows how much love they have for the work I have done and it also scares me because now I will have to choose roles carefully, to not upset their sentiments. I can never do a racy role after being Malar for them. But it feels so good to be loved like this and to know that even if I never do another movie, this character would always be in people’s memory,” she signs off.
