Nithya in conversation with NDTV.
Nithya Menen was all over the headlines when she won the Best Actress in a Leading Role Award at the 70th annual National Film Awards. The actress received this honour for her performance in the Tamil film Thiruchitrambalam, which also features Dhanush. While Nithya's films truly strike the right chord with her fans, do you know what her favourite movie is? In a chat with NDTV, the actress talked about how Lootera and The Lunchbox are two of her favourite movies. Speaking about Lootera, Nithya highlighted, “A couple of times Vikramaditya Motwane used to come up, right? He is one person that I was so fascinated (with). Because, for me, Lootera was such a perfect film. To me, it is perfection. It is a complete film. The way Sonakshi (Sinha) was shown and the way she has performed and she looks, it was timeless and beautiful.”
Nithya Menen added, “There are so many films like (The) Lunchbox. These are all favourite films of mine. I want to do stuff like this. I feel why can't I be a part of stuff like this? I do feel like that.” When asked if box office numbers matter to her, Nithya replied, “It does not mean anything actually.”
Released in 2013, Lootera is headlined by Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh. The period drama is directed by Vikramaditya Motwane. The movie narrates the story of a young con man posing as an archaeologist and the daughter of a Bengali landlord. Vikrant Massey and Divya Dutta are also part of the project. On the other hand, The Lunchbox was also released in 2013. The film is directed and written by Ritesh Batra and features Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur in the leading roles. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Lillete Dubey are also seen in the movie.
Coming back to Nithya Menen, the actress will be next seen in Idli Kadai with Dhanush, who is also directing the movie. During the same interview, Nithya shares how Dhanush sees the potential in her and pushes her to do better. “Dhanush is one person who truly sees the potential I have and he pushes it. He pushes that limit and it throws me off. He does that all the time. With Thiruchitrambalam, I really had to move out of my comfort zone to play that character because her body language and mannerisms were very different from mine. I had to come away from that and go into the character's social and economic background. Then, in this film, he pushes me further. It's like when you are learning to swim and someone suddenly throws you into the water so you just figure out how to swim. Working with Dhanush feels like it, he says, ‘It's because I know you can do it',” she said.
Idli Kadai is produced by Aakash Baskaran and Dhanush under the banners Wunderbar Films and Dawn Pictures.