Cannes 2022: I’m more fluent in Tamil and Telugu than I am in my mother tongue: Tamannaah

Tamannaah, who made her Cannes debut this year, talks about what she has learned through her eventful career, and how the on-screen perceptions of women have changed over time. The actor made her acting debut at the age of 15 and is a star in her own right. In an interview with Film Companion, Tamannaah says, "It is the audience who decides whether you’re a star. That is not in my hands. I was lucky that I became a star, because of the love of so many cinemagoers. But that image doesn’t stop me from being the actor I want to be."

Tamannaah admits back in the day, the options that actors had were a lot more limited. "The pandemic has changed how people view content and so today, we’ve become performers over everything else. So what we do, even in an Instagram post, is as important as what we put in a feature film!"

The November Story actor says she is more fluent in Tamil and Telugu than she is in my mother tongue. "So now is the time to prove that language is not the barrier because there are so many dialects India has. It’s such a beautiful country with so many accents and languages and cultures. I’m just enjoying exploring that. I’ve worked in a South Indian industry for so long, which has given me so much love."

Speaking about her career choices, Tamannaah says she believed in a film like Himmwatwala as much as she believed in a film like Baahubali. "The one thing about both films is that I wasn’t prepared for either. I learnt on the job and that’s the beauty of being an actor; that you’re discovering constantly and you’re evolving constantly. I’m not the same person who did Himmatwala. I’m not the same one who did Baahubali. I’ve moved on from both. I celebrate both."

Tamannaah observes that mistakes teach one a lot more than success does. "When you make mistakes, you discover what’s not authentic about yourself. I think today, every day is about authenticity and putting your most authentic self out there. I feel so empowered right now to be able to put that out there. I’m glad that it happened!"

Recalling her initial days in cinema, Tamannaah says, "When I started, I didn't have a lot of variety. There were a lot of cliches we (actors) were constantly subjected to." She admits she went with the flow of what was happening. After a pause, Tamannaah quickly adds, "There was also a feeling of wanting to consolidate my position in the industry. I was lucky to have great commercial success early on in my career in the South Indian film industry. I used that, I consolidated myself and I slowly came to a point where I was like, ‘Times have changed and people have woken up to the idea of not presenting women as the ones who have to be rescued. They’re ready to present women as the rescuers.’ I began to enjoy that and am part of that in terms of the cinema I’m putting out."

Up next, Tamannaah has Babli Bouncer, Gurthunda Seethakalam, Anil Ravipudi's F3: Fun and Frustration, Bhola Shankar, Bole Chudiyan, and Plan A Plan B, in her kitty.