DH Radio | The Lead: Enjoyed acting in Drushyam, says South Indian actor Nadiya Moidu

In this episode of The Lead from DH Radio, South Indian actor Nadiya Moidu, talks about acting in Telugu movie Drushyam, her illustrious career and what she’s been up to this lockdown.

Anupama Ramakrishnan: Hi Nadiya, how have you been taking the lockdown? Any projects you are involved with right now?

Nadiya Moidu: I actually started off with a Telugu film and shot for about a week, 10 days, then the lockdown happened and the work stopped, just off-late I shot for an ad, about a month ago, slowly I think things are coming to normalcy but nothing on a full scale.

Anupama: Alright, Nadiya, you made a strong presence as an IPS officer in the Telugu film Drushyam, how was the experience and was the language difficult for you? I know you speak a lot of languages but was it a challenge?

Nadiya: Yeah, Telugu, I still struggle a lot with Telugu, it was actually, one of my to-do things during the lockdown was to brush up my Telugu. Stilll haven’t gotten to it but I am sure, I will at some point, because Telugu is not a language that I normally listen to or speak. So, I always struggle with it. But, I am somehow who does a lot of homework before I get on the set and make sure that I get my dialogues well in advance to make sure that I am not wasting anyone’s time on the set.

Talking about the IPS role that I did, I was just very honoured to be part of a wonderful script, which was originally done in Malayalam and for them to you know pick on me to play the character is really awesome and there were no two thoughts about it, they did give me the option of playing the wife character or the IPS. The IPS was the one that would suit me better and I thought that, that character had far more shape than the wife’s character. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the script and of the production team.

It was the first time I ever worked with a woman director, who was the actress Sri Priya, so it was nice to bond with another woman and you could make jokes and no one would be judgemental about it or whatever and it was lovely working with her as well.

Anupama: You started an illustrious career as Girly in Malayalam with Mohanlal in Nokketha Doorathu Kannum Nattu, could tell the audience, how did that come about, you were studying in JJ School of Arts, am I right?

Nadiya: Yes, I was and I think I have told this story to many people, I will make this short and as brief as possible. The director’s brother was a very good family friend of ours and he had to pay a visit to my dad and then he stumbled upon me and then he went back to Kerala that’s when director Fasil, he had his script ready and they were looking to cast a new face and that’s when his brother who suggested to him that “I saw this girl who lives in Bombay, daughter of Moidu’s, you might want to take a look and see what you think about her, I think she might fit the character really well and that’s how it all started.

To know more about the conversation, listen to the podcast.

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