Actor Radhika Madan speaks to The Sunday Guardian.
Q: Let me start out by asking you did you make a New Year resolution this year and have you kept it?
A: I haven’t taken a new year’s resolutions since a while now like, since I think, three-four years because I wasn’t able to sustain them. So what I did was I made a list of the things that I want to grow in. And that is something that I practice throughout the year and I don’t give myself this deadline that okay, I’m gonna start going to the gym or start eating healthy from January 1. So I don’t think that works for me. So I’m just following my list and I put in that effort throughout the year, and I don’t delay it for January 1st.
Q: How has it been to represent India on the world stage at the International Emmy Awards?
A: I couldn’t believe it when I first heard that, you know, that they’ve asked me to be a jury member. I always imagined myself, you know, being nominated or winning an award but this was way more overwhelming to be given the honour to be the youngest juror from India in the Emmys, it was beautiful. You get to see such amazing films, you get to interact with maestros and such beautiful artists. And it just inspires you and makes you grow as a human being. So it was a beautiful experience.
Q: How was the experience at the Tallinn film festival? You are the first Indian actress to have served on the jury.
A: Tallinn is one festival which is so close to my heart. It was the first festival we took ‘Sanaa’ to and the way it was welcomed and appreciated there was so overwhelming and that’s the reason I got the opportunity to be a jury member there in the following year, it was because they knew me for ‘Sanaa’ so I can’t thank Sudhanshu enough for that. And just to have that experience of being there for two weeks and interacting with these amazing artists from all age groups in different fields be it sound design or you know, production animation, being updated with the technology with how films are made from the smallest budgets to the biggest budgets. You get to learn so much. You know, you can interact with a 70-year-old sound design artist, who’s done sound design in Titanic and you know, all those amazing films; and you can also interact with a 22-year-old who started filmmaking at the age of nine with a minimal budget. I grew the most at that festival and I made some friends for life. My love for art was really ignited when we went to painting exhibitions as well during our free time, and just the feeling to be able to interact with people from different countries was great. My fellow jury member was from Mexico. There was a director from Lithuania, also from New York and a village in Africa. It was just amazing.
Q: We are hearing great things about your film ‘Sanaa’. How has been the response to its screenings at film festivals?
A: By God’s grace every festival we’ve been to with ‘Sanaa’ has been fairly overwhelming. It’s as if you are breathing the same emotion. You know, we’ve always shed tears after the screening, because members from the audience sometimes cry and we get overwhelmed while talking about the firm. You just feel one with the audience and I’ve never experienced that. I’ve been to festivals but I’ve never breathed the same air or the same emotion. The environment changes because you’re vibrating in one energy, and that for me was surprising and beautiful and also something that I can’t put in words to be honest. I’m so excited to bring ‘Sanaa’ to our country and to release it and share it with the people we made the film for. It’s a film which changed me completely as an artist and as a person and I can’t wait to share it with the world.
Q: What made you take up ‘Sanaa’, what was special in the project?
A: I think I took ‘Sanaa’ at a point in my life where I wanted to showcase what I had in me, I was looking for that outlet. It was the toughest character I had read you know, so far and it really scared the hell out of me and that meant that I will have to push myself to some other level in order to do justice to the role and that’s what got me excited because I was looking for an outlet to showcase and practice whatever I learned in my craft and it was scary. It was very challenging and it just completely changed me as a human being.
Q: The year 2023 ended well for you with some great reviews for ‘Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video’. Tell us about the response you got for that.
A: The response has been really nice for ‘Sajini‘ especially when it came to OTT. I think it found its audience there. It reached way more people and I received a lot of messages, you know, talking about the character and the film and it has been really, really nice.
Q: How do you look back at the year 2023?
A: 2023 was full of learnings I would say and then travel. I promised myself that I will take a break in that year and I did take that break. I travelled a lot, I attended festivals and I also had releases so it was beautiful. I think though what it did for me was it helped me create that work-life balance that I was looking for because a year prior to that I was shooting for seven films and I somehow felt emotionally empty. So since mid of 2023 I’d taken a break, also attended festivals and I was there for my promotions but I spent a lot of time with my family and travelling and just replenishing myself emotionally. I would want to carry this forward in the coming years too -and create that balance.
Q: What goes through your mind before saying yes to a project, what are the factors you consider?
A: I’ve said this before. I don’t like playing it safe. I don’t like living the same life again. I want something to scare the hell out of me. That make me go hey How the hell am I going to do that? But I think from this year onwards I’m also going to honour what is inside me which is a real masala girl, I have Govinda in my blood and I’m yet to explore that. I mean i want to show it to the world. You know I talk in movie dialogues and I think because I started off with these Maverick directors like Vishal ji or Vasan sir or Homi that it just created that image for me that that I’m a very serious actor. I really want to show that I’m also like very masala and that’s my core, really commercial really masala and now I just want to explore that and offer it to the audience as well.
Q: What are your upcoming projects that you are excited about?
A: I have three releases this year. One is the remake of ‘Soorarai Pottru’ with Akshay Kumar sir, the other one is ‘Sanaa’ which I have spoken about in detail, and the third one is ‘Rumi Ki Sharafat’, which is produced by maddock and that’s a film which I’m really excited about because it’s a genre that nobody has seen me in, as it’s a comedy. So I’m really excited to see how people perceive me in that. So I have ‘Soorarai Pottru’, a remake. I have ‘Sanaa‘ which is a drama and I have Rumi, which is a comedy. So I just want to see how people react to all three genres and I’m really excited for them to release.