Interesting thing about Darshana Rajendran, an actor who keeps proving herself afresh film after film, is that she comes off as exactly the kind of person she has just played. In the beginning, when she made shorter appearances in Malayalam movies, you would take her for a supportive friend who hears you out, keeps you company in dark moments, and lets you lie down on her lap and sings to you. When she appeared in grander roles, you saw her as a tragic character that dies of a virus, a young woman trapped in sex trafficking, a lover ending up deserted in a haunted house or the depths of a forest. Darshana, the actor, appeared so entangled with each and every one of these characters, making it hard for the average viewer to separate the actor from the character.
Making that shift from the smaller roles to the bigger ones seemed most natural for an actor who, you could see, would not mess up a character even if the script failed. “Initially, I was always told not to take up the smaller roles offered to me, that I would not get bigger roles if I did. But I come from a theatre background, where I have enjoyed doing everything from two-scene appearances to full length roles. It has never been about the length of the character for me. So I didn’t know any other way,” Darshana says in an interview to TNM.
If smaller characters excited her, she took them on, she says. “I always felt like I could do more, and to prove that was quite a struggle. But I focused on making the most of what was offered to me at the time. I don’t regret any of the small characters I did. And I’m glad this is how I found my way to bigger characters. Now, I am being considered for good character roles, lead roles, and everything in between. That is the dream. I love the place I am at today.”
Talent, once out there, cannot go unseen for too long, and Darshana is now busy with back-to-back movies. Dear Friend came out last Friday, June 10. Very soon, another of her films, Thuramukham, directed by acclaimed cinematographer-filmmaker Rajeev Ravi, will be released. But she does not have time to celebrate, between shooting another upcoming film.
“I am working on a film called Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey with Basil Joseph, directed by Vipin Das. And I am having so much fun with it. I am experiencing many firsts with this film, and it is making me very happy,” she says. Basil was also part of Dear Friend, a film that tells a story of friendship through fun and organic moments and a bit of mystery. Arjun Lal, who has acted in the film, is also a co-writer of the script along with Sharfu and Suhas. Darshana, Tovino, Arjun Radhakrishnan, Sanchana, and Basil play the other friends.
Still from Dear Friend
“I had heard the initial idea for Dear Friend many years ago, I think in 2017, when Arjun Lal got in touch after watching a play. I had been interested in the project ever since. It came back to me again when I was down with COVID-19. Vineethettan (director Vineeth Kumar) and Arjun called a wheezing, coughing me to narrate the story, and I realised it was the same thread. I had many more reasons to be excited this time because the thread had developed beautifully, the cast they had in mind and my easy favourites Shyjukka (Shyju Khalid, cinematographer) Sameerka (Sameer Thahir, cinematographer who is one of the producers of the film), Sharfu and Suhas being on board. It was an immediate yes,” Darshana says.
Thuramukham, her other film which was supposed to release the same week, was postponed due to some legal hassles. Darshana had applied to audition for the film on the suggestion of director Geetu Mohandas. “Geetu had seen me in Koode (in which she played a friend to Nazriya’s lead character) and told me that she liked what I did, and that I should audition when the casting for Thuramukham starts. So when the open call came, I did just that. I did not like my audition, but Rajeevettan (Rajeev Ravi) called me right after and said I was in. It took me a while to register this news, so he said it again and I said thank you. It has been a dream to work with him.”
Thuramukham is led by Nivin Pauly, along with a bevy of talented actors like Nimisha Sajayan, Indrajith, Arjun Ashokan, Joju George, Sudev Nair, Poornima, Manikandan and others. It is a period film, based on a play by KM Chidambaram about the inhuman ‘chappa’ system, in which coins were thrown at labourers waiting for work, and the protests against it. Darshana plays a character called Khadeeja in the film.
The film, she says, was sort of a surreal experience. Echoing what most artistes who work with Rajeev Ravi says, Darshana calls him a non-intrusive guide who ‘magically makes you figure things out for yourself’. “He lifts you from your world and places you in the world he wants. Everyday when I wore Khadeeja’s costume and stood around these incredible actors in this beautifully designed home, I experienced some sort of magic which I find difficult to put into words. This was a very special project for me, professionally and personally,” she says.
Before these films, Darshana did Hridayam, one of the most popular Malayalam movies to come out in recent times. A romantic comedy made by Vineeth Sreenivasan, Darshana, Pranav Mohanlal and Kalyani Priyadarshan played the main characters in the film, attracting a mostly college-going audience and winning the award for best popular movie at the Kerala State Film Awards this year. A song called ‘Darshana’, which is also the name of her character in the film, became hugely popular even before the film came out.
“I was worried about Hridayam at first. I wondered if I would fit into that world. It was a different experience for me and I loved it so much. As an actor, I would like to fit into all of these worlds. As long as I am excited about the story and the character, I am happy to try anything,” she says.
It is difficult to put Darshana into a certain bracket of characters or films. She fits well into different genres of storytelling – playing the ill woman in Virus, the tearful character in C U Soon, the girl who laughs openly in Hridayam, the bold woman trapped with a crazy man in Irul, the braver lover in Aanum Pennum, or the sensible one in Dear Friend.
“I don’t want to limit myself in any way. If there is anything I feel uncomfortable doing, I want to try doing just that. Emotionally heavy scenes have always found their way to me, and those are the ones I am able to jump into quickly. I would love to do some comedy. I have tried comedy on stage and had a lot of fun with it,” she says.
There were a lot of comic elements in A Very Normal Family, a play she did with a bunch of other wonderful actors, months before COVID-19 struck the country. Roshan Mathew, another talented actor with a theatre background, directed the play.
“The theatre space had it difficult during the lockdown. There was very little happening. Now things are slowly picking up and I will hopefully get back to it soon. A bunch of us worked on something even during the lockdown. We haven’t managed to do shows of it yet, but hopefully soon. I will always try to continue doing both theatre and films. They satisfy me in very different ways,” Darshana says.
When she flowed into cinema from theatre, like many skilled predecessors over the decades, Darshana brought along a few other talents. Like singing. Even as she played the character of a friend to the lead character (Aishwarya Lekshmi) in Mayaanadhi, people noticed the young woman who sang ‘Bawra Mann’ quietly into the night as three women huddled around in the corner of a flat and contemplated their lives. Darshana sang again for Hridayam, a movie that got known for its music, and also won for its composer Hesham Abdul Wahab the state award this year.
“Singing for me was always very personal. I enjoy singing for myself and for people close to me. After singing for a scene in Mayaanadhi and putting out a cover of the lovely ‘Bawra Mann’, it unexpectedly opened up to many more people. Singing for ‘Darshana’ (the song in Hridayam) was special. I was quite nervous about it, but Hesham and Vineethettan (Vineeth Sreenivasan) recorded me at Hesham’s home studio and tried to make it less intimidating for me. I enjoyed the process very much. I am hoping to invest a lot more time learning and singing.”
There are other ‘hidden talents’ too, she admits. “Not sure if you can call them talents, but I am always learning new things. Just for myself. I love keeping my learning brain active. I started to pick up calligraphy and the guitar, I learned to compost and make bio-enzymes recently, and to read and write Urdu over the lockdown. This never ends, I keep picking up and dropping new interests. None of these are things I am anywhere close to good at, but I love learning.”