The highlight for me is that I got to debut in Kannada cinema with Sudeep’s Kotigobba 3: Madonna

On Wednesday, the leading ladies of this week’s release Kotigobba 3 - Madonna Sebastian and Abhirami - had a meet-and-greet with Bengaluru’s media. Speaking at the do, which was Madonna’s first here, the actress was brief in her statement about her character, remarking, “This is my first Kannada film and I have been very lucky to be a part of it. I am still not sure how I got this film, but I met director Shivakarthik first; he’d come to Kochi and narrated the story. It was interesting and the bonus was that the movie is already popular because it is part of franchise. I didn’t have to have second thoughts. I had a great experience shooting for it and I hope that everyone will enjoy it when the film releases on October 14. I play a doctor, a sweet simple girl, who gets entangled with what happens in the hero’s life. That’s all am allowed to say.”

Then, just as she began speaking about working on the film, and how Sudeep made it so much easier for her, Madonna was interrupted by a power failure at the venue. Unbeknown to her, though, the microphones in front of her and Abhirami were still on and captured their little banter, as Madonna told the former that briefing such a large media gathering was a first for her. When the lights came back on, she continued, “Sudeep sir is a director and actor and his experience comes to the fore all the time. Even when Shivakarthik, the director of this film would explain scenes, Sudeep sir would help everyone around; that’s probably why he is who he is. He, naturally, made my life a lot easier on set. For instance, in one scene, they had to change the dialogues on the spot and we had about five minutes before going on set to can the shot. It is not easy to learn lines by heart suddenly, but Sudeep sir asked me to learn some of it and manage the rest by lip synching in my language. He then sorted the scene out with the director and cinematographer and that is something only someone with his experience can do.”

The film, she says, is special to her. “First films are always special, plus I got to work with a wonderful team, be it Sudeep sir, Abhirami, P Ravishankar. I was familiar with Abhirami because of her work in Malayalam cinema and it’s nice to work on a project where you know others,” she says.

Kotigobba 3 is finally releasing after a long, pandemic-induced delay. “Waiting and not knowing when my films would release was a difficult thing over the past two years. In fact, I have two other projects in Malayalam and one each lined up in Tamil and Telugu as well. Luckily, I had some other work going on that kept me busy, but hearing that theatres have begun opening up and with 100% capacity in Karnataka is good news. When the team called me, I was relieved that it is finally going to release. This is a film that has to be enjoyed in theatres, and anything less than 100% capacity would not have made sense,” she signs off.