Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse’s Sushmitha Bhat on her Nanditha/Karthik twist in the thriller | Exclusive

Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, in which Mammootty plays a detective, is finally on OTT, 11 months after its theatrical release. Sushmitha Bhat played a pivotal role in the film.

Sushmitha Bhat in Dominic and the Ladies' Purse

The Malayalam detective thriller Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse had superstar Mammootty in the title role, a former cop turned private detective, who is coaxed into figuring out the owner of a purse his landlady found abandoned at a hospital, in the hope of returning it. Dominic does find out who the purse belongs to, Pooja (Meenakshi Unnikrishnan), but also that she has been missing for a while. In his attempt to track her down, the investigation leads him to another missing person, Pooja’s boyfriend Karthik (Sudev Babu), with the only connect the latter’s sister, Nanditha (Sushmitha Bhat).

Sushmitha Bhat on playing a member of the transgender community

The big twist in the tale is that after successfully deceiving everyone around, including Dominic (for a while), Nanditha is revealed to be Karthik post gender reassignment surgery and having assumed his late sister’s identity. Was Sushmitha at any point sceptical about being able to carry off a trans character? “The team was clear that they wanted a woman to play the character with emphasis on the feminine grace. They didn’t want the twist to be revealed that she could be a he. When Gautham sir told me about the role, I thought it was very interesting and was not worried about it ruining my image or that audiences would wonder if I am indeed a trans person,” says Sushmitha.

The actress says that this twist in the tale was the clincher for her. “How long can an actress keep doing the girl-next-door kind of characters? There should be some variations that allow you to explore your acting spectrum and this was one such chance to show that I can also do something like this, instead of the soft, feminine roles,” she adds. Early on when her character is introduced as a dancer, the brief was to ensure that there’s no masculine energy on display, which changes only towards the end, when there’s the physical altercation with Dominic and Karthik, who’d remained dormant for 2 years, makes an appearance again.

Also read: Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse review: This investigative thriller is too simple a take from Mammootty-Gautham Menon combo

There was also the matter of being able to convince audiences that she has the physicality to overpower Dominic. Logically, on account of having transitioned as an adult, Nanditha would still have the bone structure and muscle strength of Karthik, but then, Sushmitha is not the most muscular. “I did not think I could do it. Often, even I was not convinced that I could fight and overpower him. I wondered if it would be believable, but then I was given several examples of women being able to do tasks that seem physically impossible, when they are in a certain state of mind, like, for instance, extreme rage. There’s a rush of adrenaline that propels them and those references eventually helped me channel an inner Karthik through Nanditha,” she explains.

During the theatrical release, most of the feedback that Sushmitha got was about her dialogues, which were a mix of Tamil and Malayalam. “I am half Tamilian and half Kannadiga, so I could handle the Tamil bits, but not Malayalam, so, some of the response was that I had muddled up pronunciation of certain words. As far as the character goes, it was largely that most did not see that twist coming; they assumed I’d killed Pooja and Karthik. A few did say that the fight needed to be more believable,” she says.

On a parting note, we ask Sushmitha if she at any point thought that there maybe a backlash from the transgender community for not getting an actual trans person to play the character. “It was a creative decision that the team took to not have a person from the community for the role because they did not want the actor’s physique, body language or speech to even hint at the possibility of this twist. As for me, I was looking forward to the challenge of doing the role to see if I could do justice to it and so far, no one’s said I did a bad job,” she signs off.

Dominic and the Ladies Purse FAQs

Q. Where can one watch Dominic and the Ladies Purse?

A. Dominic and the Ladies Purse had released in theatres on January 23 and has a short box office run. Subsequently, it was expected on OTT, but had not found any takers, until now. On December 11, the production house announced that Zee5 had picked up the rights. The film has begun streaming on December 19, 2025. It is available via OTTplay Premium also.

Q. Who is on the cast of Dominic and the Ladies Purse?

A. The film is led by Mammootty, who is joined by Gokul Suresh, Sushmitha Bhat, Shine Tom Chacko, Viji Venkatesh and Meenakshi Arun.

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