A decade down south

Southern star

One time successful model and the winner of a Miss India ‘Miss Beautiful Smile Award’, Trisha Krishnan, the fair, petite heroine of many a Tamil and Telugu hit has completed a decade in films and is still going strong.

Trisha first faced the cameras in an insignificant role in the Tamil film Jodi, before she was spotted by director Priyadarshan, who offered her the lead in his Tamil film Lesa Lesa.

The film however took its own time in hitting the screens and by then, Mounam Pesiyadhe, with the then upcoming hero Surya, was released. Blockbusters like Saamy and Gilli found her playing well-etched roles. Trisha has shared frames with almost all the top stars of Tamil cinema including Kamal Haasan, with whom she did Manmadhan Ambu, and Ajith Kumar in Kireedam.

Gautam Menon’s Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, in which she was cast as a Syrian Christian girl Jessie, who falls in love with a Hindu boy, offered Trisha the chance to essay a role that not only elicited the sympathy of the audience, but also provided her plenty of aesthetic satisfaction.

The Prakash Raj production Abhiyum Naanum, a touching story of a father and his young daughter, too did well at the box office. A more recent hit of hers was the Ajith Kumar-starrer Mankatha. She has three films in the offing, in various stages of progress. They include Samar with Vishal, Boologam with Jayam Ravi and Endrendrum Punnagai with Jiiva.

Trisha has also been a hot favourite with Telugu filmmakers and her fan base in that language has been soaring with every successive hit. In fact, percentage wise, she has more hits in Telugu than in her native Tamil. Trisha struck gold with her very first foray in Varsham.

The film where she played a young, happy-go-lucky glamorous girl also fetched her a number of coveted awards. In Prabhu Deva’s directorial debut Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, which had a phenomenal run, she was paired with Siddharth. A simple love story convincingly told, this film was later remade in Tamil as Unakkum Enakkum, with Trisha playing the lead opposite Jayam Ravi. But it failed to duplicate the success of the Telugu original.

Trisha has acted with most of the top heroes in Telugu cinema like Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu, Ravi Teja and Pavan Kalyan. Her films — Bujjigadu, with Prabhas, directed by director Puri Jagannath and King, with Nagarjuna, directed by Sreenu Vaitla — made an impact at the box office and served to further her career in Telugu cinema.

She won the Filmfare award for the film Aadavari Matalaku Ardhalu Verule, where she was paired with Venkatesh. Trisha won the Filmfare Award for two other films as well — Varsham and Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana.

Her recent release Bodyguard, a remake of the Malayalam film of the same name, where she played the lead opposite Venkatesh, has also been faring well at the box office. Trisha has done well to balance her career between Tamil and Telugu films and continues to be in great demand in both these industries.

Her Bollywood debut, courtesy Priyadarshan,  through Khatta Meetha with Akshay Kumar turned out to be a big flop. The actress, however, is certain not to face any dearth of roles in the near future as she has consolidated her position in both Tamil and Telugu.