She started acting at the age of 16, and now she has 44 teleserials to her credit apart from a handful of Kannada movies with an acting career spanning over 13 years! One of the most popular actresses known for her ‘vamp’ roles on the Kannada small screen, Nethra is attempting a role which is completely opposite to her small screen avatar in Aatmabandhana, a new horror serial on Zee Kannada. And it’s the first time she is essaying such a role. The actress who has changed her name to Anikha, speaks to Bengaluru Chronicle about her illustrious decade-long journey and being loved for her onscreen negative characters, and much more.
“After 13 years of being in the industry, completing 44 TV serials, I will be seen in a complete new avatar. I will be seen in a positive role, a character who is soft by nature. This is my first such role, and I hope that it will bring a lot of positive changes along with it. When the audience saw me in the promotional videos of Aatmabandhana, they had made up their minds that I will be playing yet another negative role, but surprisingly I will be the good person in this one,” says Anikha.
However, the actor further reveals she had a different goal in her life prior to accidentally getting into acting. “I was a studious girl and was preparing to take up medicine or civil services, but an ‘unfortunately quirk of fate’ took me on a different path. A relative of mine who is a filmmaker, asked me to be a part of a tele-film, and then he himself got my portfolio done, and thus my career started off,” she adds.
Though she made a couple of guest appearances in Kannada’s most popular sitcoms — Papu Pandu and Silli Lalli, to gain experience, it was Kadambari which was her first mega serial venture, and thereafter she got so busy that in 13 years of her television career, she has acted in 44 serials.
“I have done a lot of negative characters with different shades. In Gupta Gamini, I played a double role. In Akasha Deepa, my negative role had a humorous touch and it was in Kulavadhu, the audience liked me the most,” Anikha adds.
She has even acted in films like Jothe Jotheyali, and many more before she took a break from it. “I recently wrapped up Kalachakra starring Vasishta Simha which will be released in January 2019. I had taken a break from movies as I used to act in three serials a day, even juggling between a dozen ventures at one point of time in my career. I could not give much time to movies, but now I am also managing to do movies,” she wraps up.
