Mahanati (2018), the biopic on late actor Savitri, marked a significant turn in Keerthy Suresh’s career. In 2019, she bagged the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in it. One might have expected that to open the floodgates to film offers. Instead, she found herself sitting at home for six months. What seemed like a career lull, however, went on to reshape her trajectory.
Speaking exclusively to News18, Keerthy says, “It’s very funny. I believe that I wasn’t getting film offers because people were confused about where to place me. After Mahanati, they couldn’t see me through the same lens that they were earlier seeing me with. They knew that they had to bring something meaty to me. It was a nice feeling and I took it in the right
way.”
She considers it a much-needed break and used the time to indulge herself, only to realise that her finances had taken a beating. “First of all, I needed a break at that time because I was working back-to-back. In a way, I was happy until I realised that my financial stability was going for a toss. But in those six months, I started doing nicer things,” she recalls.
Keerthy also used that time to rethink her career choices and eventually shifted her focus to author-driven roles. “Before Mahanati happened, I was doing a lot of commercial films, where I was playing the girl-next-door – somebody who comes, does a little bit and goes off. It’s not like I had done heavy performance-driven roles before Mahanati,” she remarks.
In May this year, the Dorothy and Dasara actor spoke about about body-shaming in an Instagram post, saying people criticised her when she was ‘plumpy’ and later told her they preferred her earlier appearance. She also clarified that her transformation was the result of hard work, not surgery. And this ‘makeover’, according to her, also happened post Mahanati.
“I also used the time to transform myself and take care of my body. From 2013 to 2018, I only used to shoot, eat, sleep and repeat. There was nothing called workout in my life. I was like, ‘Mera face toh kaam kar raha hai, why do I’ve to worry about my body?’ But that wasn’t the right perspective. I was a little plump and I wanted to get healthy – not because I wanted to look a certain way,” she says.
Keerthy, who’ll next be seen in Akka alongside Radhika Apte, further adds, “In those six months, I started working out for the first time. That’s when I had a makeover. I started wearing different kinds of clothes. If you ask me if I regretted not working those six months, the answer is no. That was the time when I learnt so much about myself. I also learnt how to handle money.”
