Forewarned is forearmed seems to be the apt adage in Divina Thakur’s case. The lissome actress who is making her foray into Mollywood through Veeram has an interesting tale to narrate about her role and how she landed here. It had nothing to do with a Malayalam film and everything to do with a Bollywood one, she explains. “I had read this book Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi. It so happened that I came by information that a prominent director in Bollywood had bought the rights of the book for a film. There is a character called Sati who does a lot of kalari and swordfights in the book and I have been dreaming of playing her. I wanted to have an advantage if the book was made into a film and so, I started learning Kalaripayattu four years back. It was an immense fore-thinking on my part.” Well, future had something else in store for Divina.
She bagged the role of Kuttimani in the tri-lingual Veeram after director Jayaraj saw her commercials as a model and called her for a meeting. She continues, “We talked about world cinema and both of us are great admirers of Akira Kurosawa and that broke the ice. It also helped that I already knew kalari.” Talking about her kalari sequences, Divina says, “It was not a cakewalk but neither was it a hardship because I already knew kalari and the body postures are very important while doing kalari.” For Kuttimani, she put on weight. Divina animatedly says, “I play this voluptuous beauty who knows her power. I put on 8-10 kilos after hogging lots of appams and idlis. My character has a lot many shades like love, ambition, greed, lust for power and betrayal.” Speaking Malayalam, especially ‘Malabari Malayalam’, was difficult for her, so she used to write her lines in Hindi and English, take the help of her friends in Mumbai and then mug it up.
The film was shot in 45 days in three languages which was quite a task. Though Divina is settled in Mumbai, she is not new to Kerala as she had done a lot of commercials and has acted alongside Ranbir Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan. She reveals, “I have been to the Alappey beach and Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. I love the food, especially the appam, peas curry and the steamed bananas as well as the people of Kerala.” Asked if she watches Malayalam films, she says, “I am not an avid watcher of Malayalam films but I like Mohanlal, Dulquer Salmaan, Prithviraj and Jayaraj sir’s films. But Mohanlal sir is my favourite.” Divina will soon be seen in a web series in Hindi.
