Lakshmi Gopalaswamy weighs in on work for an actress over 40

If one were to look at Lakshmi Gopalaswamy’s filmography, it would be hard to believe that she is actually a Kannadiga from Bengaluru. In the nearly 25 years that she’s been in cinema, she’s done far more work in Malayalam than back home in Kannada films. She’s got a release coming up this month, the legal thriller The Judgement, directed by Gururaj Kulkarni.

Crazy Star V Ravichandran plays the lead in the film as a public prosecutor, whose error in judgement sends an innocent man to jail. Upon realizing his mistake, he sets out to remedy it, but cannot make the switch to the defence team. What he can do is to have someone else as the face of the defence team, while he works on the case in the backdrop. Lakshmi, from what one gathers in the trailer, is the prosecutor assigned to ensuring that the person who’s been sent to jail stays there.

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This pits her against Ravichandran, a role that she says is just as important as the leading man and one that is quite special to her. Speaking with director Gururaj as part of a special series of promotional video interviews for the film, Lakshmi said that The Judgement has been a special experience for her. “For starters, getting a role like this is rare. Once you are over 40 years of age, filmmakers don’t know where to place you – you are too young to play mother to the hero or heroine. Although people say that scripts and roles are being written for artistes like me, honestly, I don’t think there are that many. In such a scenario, I got a role that is just as important as the leading man,” she said.

The actress adds that working with Ravichandran was a revelation for her. “My perception of him was that he is highly creative and yet commercial in his filmmaking style, which I could appreciate but not be a part of. When I then met him on the set of The Judgement, I really liked him and how frank and caring he is. I didn’t know he is like that,” she says. The Judgement is being pitched as a May 2024 theatrical release, but the team is yet to announce a date.

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Lakshmi was last seen in Kannada cinema in Pavan Wadeyar’s Raymo, in which she played the hero’s mother, Mahalakshmi. Raymo is available to stream on OTTplay Premium’s Simply South pack. Her films like Allamma, Vidaaya (for which she won a Karnataka State Award), Vishnu Sena, Poorvapara are not available on OTT, while Aptharakshaka is on Disney+ Hotstar.

Watch the best of South cinema on ZEE5, aha, ManoramaMAX, SunNXT and 250+ live TV channels with OTTplay Premium subscription of the Simply South pack that includes 19 streaming platforms at just ₹75 for the first month, using the code OTTORG75