Actor Suhasini Maniratnam, wife of director Mani Ratnam and niece of actor Kamal Haasan, has worked with megastar Chiranjeevi in several films, including, Manchu Pallaki (1982), Kirathakudu (1986), Aradhana (1987), and more. During the IFFI 2025 session titled The Luminary Icons: Creative Bonds and Fierce Performances on November 21 with Khushboo Sundar, Suhasini recalled feeling intimidated by him. She also revealed that he asked her to do better during a scene, and he had only seen her as a cameraperson before becoming an actress.
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During the session, the duo discussed what intimidates them while shooting. After which, Suhasini recalled being on a huge film set with Chiranjeevi. “One thing that intimidates me is the typical film set, the Vijaya Vauhini set. It was scary, because they say silence and everybody goes silent, you don’t know what to do. You kind of forget and you become paralysed. I was a cinematographer and I didn’t know acting, I learnt it slowly on the job,” she shared.
The 64-year-old continued, “I was playing a slightly comical role in a Telugu film. I go and pretend to be a maid inside the hero’s house. Six of us were there in the scene, each one of them was talking. I was standing behind the chair, I had no dialogue. Every time somebody said something, I gave a reaction without saying anything.”
She revealed that the Godfather actor asked her to act like the main lead, instead of a junior artist. “Suddenly, Chiranjeevi looked at me and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Acting’. He said, ‘You are the heroine of the film, you aren’t a junior artist’. Because usually, this is how the junior artists are taught, to react, not stand still. That is what you learn in commercial films.”
Suhasini Maniratnam also recalled another interesting anecdote with the megastar to explain the acting term ‘double take’ to the audience. “I was doing my first Telugu film and I was supposed to be doing a rangoli. And then, Chiranjeevi comes and stands, and I gradually look at him and say, ‘Oh you are watching me’. He saw me as a camera assistant for a previous film. And now, the girl behind the camera was his heroine, he couldn’t even digest that. A girl who was putting reflector for him was his heroine, he even says that today,” she shared, mentioning how Chiranjeevi couldn’t imagine her as his female lead.
The actor then boasted a bit about the fact that she is superstar Kamal Haasan’s niece and her acting skills shouldn’t be taken lightly. “When we were doing the rehearsal, he came and said in my ear, ‘You can’t suddenly look at me, you have to look at me casually and say something’. I am Kamal Haasan’s niece, you forgot that? I grew up with an actor in my house. I did the scene naturally then and he said, ‘Donga Pilla’, which means thief, he basically meant I know my job. That’s a delayed reaction, which is a part of double take,” she concluded.
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