After a string of bold roles, Anu Mol will soon appear on the big screen in an out-and–out commercial film, Jamna Pyari. The actress, who is awaiting the release of Dr Biju’s Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal and Manoj Khanna’s Amoeba and Anthony’s Night Show — the Tamil remake of Shutter — will be playing a guest role in the movie.
“I rarely distinguish my roles as artsy or commercial. To me, any exciting role is a good role.” “The entire team of Jamna Pyari, including the writer and the cinematographer, are good friends of mine. So when they approached me with this exciting character of a village development officer who changes the course of the story, I readily agreed. It was lots of fun shooting for the film with lots of gossip and teasing at the sets in Palakkad,” she says.
She adds that Night Show is the film she is most excited about. “We had some of the best in the industry working on the film, be it the director, cinematographer or crew. Generally, people are only familiar with actors and prominent directors, but Anthony is the only editor who has such star value. I have heard that even the projects for which he only had time to edit the trailers and not the entire film became successful just because of his trailer edits!”
“But since there is a critically and commercially successful Malayalam version of Shutter, which the audiences are inevitably going to compare the movie with, and as my character was done by Sajitha, who is a much more senior artiste and a great actress, I am tense as to how the audiences will receive my performance. Till now, we have got positive feedback from within the industry and I hope I have done justice to my role,” she says.
Anu, interestingly, will be seen playing two characters with different perspectives on the same issue in her upcoming festival releases; as an Endosulfan victim in Amoeba and as an activist seeking ban on Endosulfan use in Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal. Though the films will soon be sent for festivals, the theatre releases are only expected next year.
