Darling Krishna introduces Love Mocktail 2’s Renu, whose smattering of Kannada is winning hearts

Actor-director Darling Krishna introduced two actresses with his latest, Love Mocktail 2 – Rachel David, who’s already done a few Malayalam movies, as Sihi, and Swetha, a complete novice, as Swetha, the house help at Sihi’s grandfather’s place in Madikeri. Both of them were quite the highlight of the film in their own way, with Swetha taking some extra credit for her effort to speak Kannada.

Swetha, as it turns out, is a native of Darjeeling, who has been living in Bengaluru for a decade, working as a waitress at a city restaurant. A chance encounter with Krishna and Milana at the restaurant she worked at became her audition of sorts for a role in the film, as she spoke to the actor couple in broken Kannada, which they thought would work well. And work it did!

Earlier today, Krishna introduced Swetha to the media. “We had auditioned a lot of people for the character of Renu, but found them all quite ‘regular’. I wanted something special, because this is a character that brings in a massive change in the hero’s life. When Milana and I first met her, we were impressed by the Kannada she spoke. As we got chatting with her, we told her that we were getting married soon, and her quick retort to that was that when we have a child it would be half black and half white, based on our complexions. I saw the humour in it and found her interesting as a person, so I asked Milana what she thought about getting Swetha to act. She also thought it would bring in a difference to the film and that’s how we asked Swetha to be a part of Love Mocktail 2,” said Krishna, adding that although he trained Swetha with her lines, he tried as much as possible to keep it natural in and the way she would speak, instead of insisting on grammatically correct spoken language.

Addressing the media, Swetha said that she’s been trying to speak in Kannada since moving to Bengaluru, even though she knows that she maybe making mistakes. “When Krishna sir met me, he asked if I would act in a film, and I said no, because I was scared to face a camera. But he was confident that I could pull it off and the fact that audiences are loving my character, Renu, is testimony to that. I am very grateful to Krishna sir and Milana ma’am for entrusting me with this character,” she said.