Actress Ritwika, who debuted in director Bala’s Paradesi, plays a strong-willed woman in the recently released Madras. Despite having a Bala movie under her belt, Ritwika still had to audition for her role in Madras. Speaking to Silverscreen at the Madras press meet, Ritwika said, “I had three rounds of auditions and a screen test before the director chose me for the role.”
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Although she was born and brought up in Chennai, the actress struggled to pick up the North Madras dialect. “Director Ranjith conducted a workshop and we all rehearsed our scenes for about 20 days. I felt like I was attending film school. If we hadn’t gone through training, we probably would have struggled. Dubbing was still hard,” Ritwika said. Many of her scenes in Madras were canned in the first take. In Paradesi, Ritwika was seen as a bridegroom. “Nobody in my family works in movies. I am the first. I credit Bala sir for what I am today,” she told us.
When the actress was in college, she starred in some short films made by her friends. “They told me I was photogenic and they liked my dusky skin-tone. I thought it was just them being extra-kind to me. But now I am starting to believe what they said.”