After a brief hiatus, this pretty actress is back with two big projects — a horror thriller, Aake directed by KM Chaitanya of the Aa Dinagalu and Aatagara fame and the second, a surefire winner — Leader opposite Century Star Dr Shivarajkumar. Sharmiela Mandre who will turn 26 this Friday speaks exclusively with Bengaluru Chronicle about her change in approach towards films, sharing her experience and much more.
“After my previous movie Mumtaz which released last year, I took a break for a while before taking up KM Chaitanya’s directorial Aake. I am in the middle of shooting for Leader, where for the first time, I am acting alongside Shivanna. I have started to realise the importance of a good script and that a film cannot always be a star-studded commercial venture. I have passed that phase in my career and now will focus on quality projects only,” says Sharmiela.
Excited about Aake, which is a horror-thriller by Chaitanya, this one is also a totally new experience for her. “I have not done anything like this in my career so far. I was to work with Chaitanya in the past, it never materialised. This is a great offer, and I have enjoyed working with him, and have also learnt a lot from the experienced crew, including Prakash Belawadi Sir and Achyuth Kumar,” she adds.
Recollecting her shooting experience in one of the spookiest forests in the world — the Pink forest in UK, Sharmiela explains, “I play the role of a young mother with a child in Aake, and the film revolves around several incidents. We shot in one of the spookiest places — Pink Forest. I had never believed in ghosts and supernatural elements till then, but when I sensed the strange things after shooting at various locations, I changed my opinion,” Sharmiela laughs.
“In fact, we shot a major portion in London and the best part was the involvement of local technicians that were the same talents who worked in the Harry Potter series. “It was a great collaboration and an amazing learning experience working with them, considering their professionalism and also exchanging culture and traditional snippets,” she says, adding that the shoot for the horror movie was a challenge as she had to prepare with innumerable rehearsals as the final take was a long shoot of a single scene with no cuts and steady camera work.
From playing a young mother, she is now busy portraying a TV journalist in Leader, sharing screen space with Shivanna and is thrilled at this chance. “I was nervous to act with Shivanna, but he made it so easy,” she says.
She reveals that she is not in the rat race of signings, and feels confident about taking up only quality projects, believing in going with the flow. Sharing a recent incident where a producer approached her for a film, Mandre explains: “He said that he is doing a film and asked how much do I charge for a commercial film and spoke about dates and revealed that all the songs will be shot at a later stage. Nowhere did he mention anything about the script. It irked me and I asked for the script and that I would finalise it after reading. He never turned up! I feel that asking for the script is the right of every artist.”
The actress has been busy as a judge of a reality show and she hopes that there is a second season to it. We wish the gorgeous girl a very happy birthday, in advance.
