She is four films old, five if you count the one in Kannada that is about to finish. And a sixth is being shot. All this in less than two years. It all started that day, when Mareena Michael Kurisingal decided to change her cover picture on Facebook into one that she had taken at a studio. Her cousin found her photogenic and referred her to his friend Dalu, who was coordinating the Miss Malabar Beauty Pageant.
“Not that I won the title,” she laughs, not attempting to sound like the all-important new face in cinema. What she did win is Miss Beautiful Smile. And that shows in her many pictures. There have been a lot of that — picture shoots for ads in print, on television and just about everywhere. One of them must have got the attention of Deepak, the actor who plays the hero in Nellikka, to rope her into films.
Mareena appeared in a character role in Nellikka, and then again in Haram. Mumbai Taxi, which released this Friday, is her first as a heroine. “It is not a glamorous role, all rough and tough.”
The scenes behind the camera had also rough and tough. Shooting in Dharavi, the crew had trouble getting permission. And right on that day, Mareena fell down and had a ligament problem. But she couldn’t go to the hospital in time. That would mean losing precious time. So with a bad leg and a heavy bag, she walked for two days of the shooting. Rather, she limped.
“And when we shot again two months later, I had to act like I limped,” she laughs. But she had tougher days shooting in the Kannada film Cherry, because of the language problem. She says she won’t act in another Kannada film. Mareena, who’s just completed her B.Com, speaks with surprising maturity, when she says she hasn’t decided if it is cinema she wants to do, but is wise enough to not let go of the good offers that come her way.
She is careful in her interactions with co-actors. She has been very professional on the sets of Haram, not acting like a crazy fan with Fahadh. Neither in Amar Akbar Antony, where she has a few comedy scenes with Indrajith. But it was different in the Tamil film Ennul Aayiram produced by Delhi Ganesh, the veteran actor. Mahadevan, his son, plays the hero. “Both of us were new, in fact the whole crew was. So it was more relaxed and easy.”
