'Kannada movies are story-centric'

The actress, who first faced camera at the age of three as the Farex baby, and entered the film industry through  the Bollywood film Lajja, has acted in Telugu movies like Okariki Okaru, Gopi and got a break in Kannada movies with Ravi Chandran’s Aham Premashmi and Santha with Shivarajkumar. Now, she has almost completed shooting for the Upendra starrer Rajani.

“I have been working with Kannada film industry’s best known names so far. Two of my released films have been well made and have brought me lot of appreciation. I am confident of Rajani becoming a big success also. I want to do more number of Kannada films, but somehow, the gaps have been longer. It is nearly two years since I worked in Santha,” she says.  

Known to be blatantly honest, Aarthi says that Kannada movies are more story-centric than Bollywood. “I find that in the two Kannada films that I had acted, there was more scope for the story element even though I had to do glamourous roles. But in my third film Rajani, I have much scope for performance also. I think with the release of Rajani, the perception that I am suitable for only glamourous roles may change. There were many sequences in Rajani which required me to perform. I think I have done            better in these critically important sequences of the film,” she explains while confidently adding, “I was seeing some of the portions on the monitor during the shootings and they were really mind blowing. I enjoyed working with Upendra ji, who is a big actor in the Kannada film industry. I am sure that even Rajani will be a huge successful.” 

In her recent Bollywood release, Daddy Cool, one saw Aarthi in a less glamourous role as well. “The role demanded it as I was playing Sunil Shetty’s wife and I had to look mature,” says she.

With the production team having bought the rights of Death at a Funeral to make Daddy Cool, Aarthi felt that it was a relief for an actor to openly say that she is in a remake.
“It is a good feeling to openly say that the movie is a re-make. That way at least we are not cheating the audience,” she says.

Ask Aarthi if there is anything she will change in her journey of rises and falls, she says, “Not one thing, I have accepted and learnt from my failures and successes. And that has made me the person that I am today.”