If actor Padmaja Rao’s breakthrough in the entertainment industry is to be made into a film, it could be titled ‘The Fire Within’. For, the fire within or the desire to act pushed the aspiring actor, who didn’t have a guardian or godfather, to steadily cast a mark as a performer worth her salt in the Kannada film and TV space.
She has acted in 93 films so far and has adorned the small screen in serials. She paved her path into the acting circuit by assisting a film producer and a TV serial director, hoping that someone would notice her interest in acting that always fell shy of self-expression.
The acting bug
“The producer of Malgudi Days, T S Narasimhan, needed an assistant. So, I quit my receptionist job at a TV company and jumped at the opportunity,” is her recollection of the way she inched closer toward the acting fraternity.
“Even then I didn’t tell him about my wish to act. However, I had an opportunity to cross paths with directors T N Seetharam and T S Nagabharana. So I got cameos and small roles in the serials O Nanna Belake, Sadhane, Mayamruga and others,” she recalls and adds a reminder that “at this point, I was married, had a son, and had stepped into my 30s.” (She was born into an orthodox family that scorned her interest in acting but eventually appreciated her talent.)
As a raconteur who weighs words and uses graceful hand gestures, the actor narrates the instances leading to her breakthrough role as the elder daughter-in-law, Shakku, in the televised family drama set in North Karnataka called Moodala Mane, directed by Vaishali Kasaravalli: “My friend had joined Vaishali Kasaravalli as an assistant. He egged me on to join her team first and then win her over. So I went to work with her. I printed copies, made her coffee, wrote down costumes for the cast! When she asked me to call actors for audition, I dialled numbers with a vile wishful thinking that some actors would drop out. Well, I hadn’t expected a major role, just a minuscule one! Sometimes my mind screamed, ‘Don’t you see me?’ when Vaishali ma’am went about auditioning. Yet I did not have the nerve to tell her about my desire to act. And she rightfully believed that my intention there was to learn secretarial work.”
Fortunately for Padmaja, the role of the protagonist remained unoccupied even though shooting dates began to close in. “So my friend, in my absence one day, suggested my name to her, whose reply had been, ‘Is that so? Do you think she will live up to the role? Okay. Ask her to meet me at my house in the costume’.”
The actor remembers donning a kacche sari in a jiffy, and riding on a Luna to reach the director’s home. Of course, she was prepared. She had wished for it a million times.
“I took a deep breath and knocked on her door. On seeing me, she took a whole minute and replied, ‘Oh, dear beauty, you are my Shakku!’ She asked me to pose this way and that, and the deal to act in her serial was sealed,” maintains the actor. What more, she trained her tongue to speak Kannada the North Karnataka way.
But, there was one problem: the task of convincing the channel about the newly-found talent that was Padmaja. So, off to the channel went the director to talk about casting someone without any experience, and with little credit in acting.
“She trusted me and risked much by casting me as the protagonist! This stint gave a 360-degree change to my career. The channel that wondered who I was wrote an email after 50 episodes to feature my role as a regular in the serial. She helped me realise my dreams. She is my goddess when it comes to my career,” the 47-year-old actor exclaims. (The influence of the serial Moodala Mane comes through when she mentions “her upcoming traditional house with red-oxide floors and pillars.”)
A big presence
Padmaja became “the reigning actor on small screen,” and enjoyed breathing life into the roles of “daughter-in-law she was given because they were all meaty.” Soon there landed a call from Ravichandran’s office asking her to portray mother to Crazy Star’s character in the film Hatavadi (2006). “I was ambivalent initially. I mean, sure, moving to films was a graduation, but I was not even 40 years old. I knew I couldn’t play any lead roles in films due to my age, but to dye my hair white seemed daunting. I did it anyway.” That was also the year she became part of Mungaru Male’s success. “Now I’m quite comfortable and confident in the field.”
With a steady foothold in her career at present, she dreams of her own direction in future. She has directed and produced ads and a serial called Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu, about a young woman’s fortitude. The hope now is to “direct a tele-film and a serial where I play whoever I want! I don’t want to run around tress, but there must be a way to bring middle-age romance on screen. No children, no MOTHER,” she asserts.
She has signed up for one Tamil film and three Tulu films. Though she does not expect the kind of roles to change, she sees branching into other regional films as a profitable move for her career. “They pay well.” She believes money can lend a woman more self-confidence, and that “every woman must not limit herself to home but head out and carve an identity for self. She must own some personal space.”
Having said this, she cherishes the instances when her husband and her son, Santosh (24-year-old herpetologist), visited her on the sets of outdoor shoots that would sometimes go on for months. Padmaja lives with her family in Bengaluru and is fond of travelling.