Tamannaah has completed 14 years as an actor in cinema. On March 4 2005, when she was 15, her first film Chand Sa Roshan Chehera released. It wasn’t a big success, but her performance was noticed and there was no stopping her from there. She acted in over 60 Telugu, Tamil and Hindi films in the next decade, taking no break from career. She is currently one of the highest paid actors in India.
When she started out, her unfamiliarity with south Indian languages was not a bar for her. She says in an interview, “I was too engulfed by the thought of acting. So I didn’t worry about the new language or geography. There was no calculation. I just wanted to enjoy myself. Success didn’t matter.”
In 2005 and 2006 she acted in Sri in Telugu and Kedi in Tamil. In 2007 Happy Days and Kalloori did well, with her winning a Filmfare for her role as a college student in Kalloori.
From working on films like Netru Indru Naalai, Kalidasu, Thillalangadi, Paiyaa, AAA, Himmatwala that perhaps offered her less scope to perform, she moved on to better roles and scripts. In 100% Love she played a woman who wanted to continue studying, in Badrinath she was an atheist against her family’s wishes. In Vengai she told the locally powerful Dhanush, who was love with her, to give her time because there were other things on her mind.
Her most recent roles in films like Dharma Dhurai, Sketch, and Kanne Kalaimaane feature her as a woman who would have had a perfectly fine life in the stories without the hero.
However, it’s not all been an upward rise for her, even with the films that did well at the box office but underplayed her role. Last year’s Next Enti? was one such film, so was the mega hit Bahubali series even though it was a project she had always wished to do. She has often spoken about her willingness to take up roles no matter how the film turns out.
And so she has been the actor who takes it one project at a time with no grand plans, except to keep working. She said in an interview last month that she loved hearing rumours about her because, “When people write that I am looking to get married or retiring, I feel there is a need to work even harder. I like proving people wrong about me. I like the feel of needing to rush for work and involve even more.”
She has three films scheduled for release this year. That is Mahalakshmi, a Telugu remake of the Hindi film Queen, stars her in the lead. The horror-comedy Devi 2 by AL Vijay, stars Tamannaah, with Prabhu Deva, Nandita Swetha, Jagan and Kovai Sarala in supporting roles.
Surendar Reddy and Ram Charan’s Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy starring Tamannaah, Nayanthara, Chiranjeevi, Sudeep and others is likely to release in October.
