South actor Samyuktha to make her Bollywood debut with Kajol: You have to upgrade your skill set for this industry

South fame Samyuktha is all set to mark her Bollywood debut opposite Kajol and Prabhu Deva in the thriller Maharagni - The Queen Of Queens. Addressing certain language barriers that exist between the South and Hindi film industry, she says that its fading away and the time is for cross collaborations now.

Also Read: Samyuktha found it difficult to act in Telugu films initially due to the makeup: ‘I was used to looking natural’

“I am from Kerala but I work more in Telugu. I came into cinema at a time when all the language barriers were slowly going away. Pushpa released at that time and many others big films, everyone was watching these films in other languages. So, it’s more of a cross language collaboration that’s been going on now. Even in Telugu, many Hindi actors are playing such good roles and our lead actors also star in Hindi films,” the actor says, and adds, “As an actor, you would want to see all the textures. It feels like I am starting from level one in a different language. You have to upgrade your skill set for Bollywood, there is a lot of healthy competition.”

The actor, who is popular for films in Malayalam, Telugu, as well Tamil languages, including, Edakkad Battalion 06 (2019), Bheemla Nayak (2022), and Kalki (2019), thinks of Bollywood as a “larger than life” cinema. “Malayalam is a very content oriented industry. On the other hand, Telugu is a mix of everything, massy and content centric. In Hindi, I feel I will be able to tell better once I do more work here but from what I see is that people are more interested in cinema that is larger than life and has unexpected things happening,” says the the 28-year-old.

Also Read: Aditya Seal excited to join his “idols” Kajol, Prabhudeva in Maharagni: Queen of Queens

“Lately, I feel that the gap between South and Hindi cinema is getting bridged. Many of my films including one with Dhanush were dubbed in Hindi and it worked so well. Not just the actors, even the audiences in South and North have started accepting each other’s content full heartedly. The phenomenon started with Bahubali and has been continuing now, I am happy about that!” she further adds, highlighting that both the audiences like watching each other’s content now.

“I am playing Kajol maam’s sister in the film. What I like about it is that the way it happened to me was very interesting. One of the Telugu directors called me and said that a director wants to meet you for a Bollywood film. It’s not everyday it happens that you get a meaningful commercial film. It has action, songs and a good message, it’s full of colours I’d say,” she tells us.

Ask the actor if there were any specific challenges or barriers while shooting for the project, which is still under process, and she shares, “I was really new to the language, it was difficult to deliver my Hindi lines. Kajol ma’am used to give me cues, she was really helpful and we got along really well. When you work with a senior actor, you don’t want to make them uncomfortable by going for a second or third take, so it’s a pressure. All these thoughts were coming, but it went really well.”

“Other than the language, there were no barriers. I look at cinema as cinema. It’s always a matter of what’s between action and cut. I enjoy the process and once you do that, you are least bothered about anything else around you. Cinema speaks the same language everywhere,” she adds.