Nithya Menen on winning the National Award for Thiruchitrambalam, “I absolutely think happier performances are usually ignored, and the minute I got the award…”

By Subhash K. Jha -

August 23, 2024 - 12:01 PM IST

The immeasurably talented Nithya Menen, who has just won her first National Award, started her career as a child actor. “I just did one film when I was a child. So, it's not like I was always in films, and as a child I was constantly on sets, and I was not normal. That's not true at all. People always say I'm a child actor, and so they think I've been growing up in films. I was not. I started properly doing films only after my college. So yeah, I did one film when I was eight years old. And I did one TV serial as well when I was 12 or 13. So, that's about it. So, those are very isolated incidents in my life. It's not like something I remember as a constant, or it's not a big part of my life. They were very isolated incidents, and they were just like going on a trip or a vacation or something like that and coming back, because I didn't do too much,” she said.

Nithya Menen on winning the National Award for Thiruchitrambalam, “I absolutely think happier performances are usually ignored, and the minute I got the award…”

The National Award for Thiruchitrambalam comes as a timely reminder of Nithya’s talent and too the fact that, light-hearted roles also deserve recognition.

Said Nithya, “I absolutely think happier performances are usually ignored, and the minute I got the award, I felt that that is something that I should talk about, that it's actually a very imbalanced thought process. If people think that films that are happy or films that are light, or comedy or romance or any of those genres are not substantial, it's not the truth. And it's imbalanced. I did want to highlight that, and I was really happy when this award was given for the film Thiruchitrambalam because it sorts of highlights that. My reaction to the National Award though was really something that I didn't expect, and it surprised me. I think I really reacted to it! Normally, I don't react so much, but it is something, getting a National Award is obviously something big, and something that validates who you are, and even if you feel you don't need the validation or whatever, it still acknowledges you in a very public way, and it's a big deal.”

A natural-born scene-stealer, this writer asked Nithya how she reacts to jealous co-stars. “My first reaction is, I hope it's not my problem to cope with,” she said. “I think if people have issues, it's their problem to cope with. I think what I try really to strive and get to is, to get to a place where I'm able to work with people who are collaborative, who are also good, so that they don't feel that high sense of insecurity, and to also work with people to whom the project is more important than anything else.”

She continued, “So, when they see benevolence, or when they see talent, they actually value it a lot, and they appreciate it a lot. So, for me, the strife is to try to find people like that, and to work with them, because that's how I am. When I see talent or when I see creativity, it really gives me energy, and it makes me feel wonderful that these people are the way they are. So, I would like to find people like that as well, and people who are able to truly value why something like that should be valued.”

Talking about her journey as an actor so far, Nithya said, “There are so many things I wish I'd done differently. So many things I wish I'd done better. But honestly, it would be wrong for me to regret anything because things have always been just given to me. And I have to take it with gratitude. And I think I'm in a really good place. And I think whatever the decisions I've made, thankfully, it's brought me here. And I'm happy for where it has brought me. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it goes from here.”

She added, “The career was never something I had planned or that I had done myself. Or I had tried to make happen. It just simply happened to me. And so, yeah, it is also a thing of beauty for me as well to see and, you know, to watch how things are unfolding. I think there were turning points in my career. I would say, Ala Modalaindi, my first Telugu film, was a huge turning point. I think Ok Kanmani was also a turning point. It was a big pivotal moment. And definitely Thiruchitrambalam was a huge turning point because of the recognition and the kind of widespread success that it had. And it reached the hearts of people, you know. So that's definitely a huge leap.”

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Nithya Menen on Kumari Srimathi, “It’s not something that has ever