Ayyana Mane’s Kushee Ravi: I wanted to break the stereotype that established actors won’t do web series

Kushee Ravi made her film debut in 2016 with The Great Story of Sodabuddi, but got her break a good 4 years later, when her film Dia became one of the most talked about films of 2020, creating waves after its OTT release. The film had hit theatres shortly before the whole world went into lockdown due to the pandemic and found a lot of love and support from audiences on streaming. Since then, Kushee has been known as Dia-fame Kushee, a recognition she loves, but reckons is time she broke out of. In this endeavour, Kushee has been dabbling with films, short films, music videos, etc., and her latest is a Kannada web series.

Kushee is the main lead of Zee5’s first Kannada original web series, Ayyana Mane , which ha s been written and directed by Ramesh Indira (of Premier Padmini fame) and will drop on the platform on April 25, 2025. “I liked the freshness of the concept, which should appeal to audiences too,” she says. In the Kannada industry, where films are the seen as the ultimate goal for artistes, with small screen actors aspiring to get to the big screen but rarely the other way around, Kushee and most of her Ayyana Mane co-stars, have done the latter.

The reason, she says is that she’s been wondering why barring the Kannada industry, in every other language, big stars are making a beeline for the OTT space. “Here, when you talk of short films, music videos or web series, it’s always led by newcomers, and doesn’t register with audiences, which isn’t the case in Bollywood, Kollywood or Tollywood. The big stars of Kannada may not have been approached yet for series, but it is only when at least one ventures into the OTT space, that it gives others the confidence to try it out. As someone already in the industry, I wanted to break the stereotype that film actors won’t do web series,” Kushee told Power TV News.

In Ayyana Mane, Kushee plays Jaji, a newly-wed bride, who heads to her husband’s ancestral home, even as her own life hangs in the balance, what with the family believed to be under a curse leaving the daughters-in-law dead. With three already dead, is Jaji next in line, or can she get to the bottom of what’s going on?

Ayyana Mane has been produced by Shruti Naidu and has 6 episodes of 18-20 minutes each. The show will stream in Kannada and with Hindi audio too.