I am a Tamil girl to the core, says Shruti Haasan

CHENNAI: Dressed in a black saree with floral print, we meet Shruti Haasan at a hotel in the city and she is a picture of poise. When you say Chennai ponnu, she is one of the first few names that comes into our mind. “It has been over six-seven months since I last visited Chennai. What an irony right? But I am happy to be back home,” she begins.

Shruti had a great run in 2022 with consecutive blockbusters like Veera Simha Reddy and Waltair Veerayya in Telugu. “Then there was my web series Bestseller that won critical acclaim and was named as one of the best shows of the year. Post June 2022, it was absolutely crazy for me as well as my manager Kavya. We had our independent single coming out, then there was shooting of Salaar, two more Telugu films and a Hollywood film, which was made under a strict timeline. They even wondered if we could do it as they cannot shift and I had to travel to shoot,” says Shruti. The musician-actress says that it was in the beginning of this year, she started looking at other upcoming commitments. “Only when I wrapped up Salaar did I start looking at other projects. I had been receiving Tamil scripts but I didn’t have a huge chunk of dates to allocate. I will be a part of some interesting Tamil projects this year and it is going to be an exciting phase,” she adds.

Not only the phase, Shruti Haasan describes herself as exciting if she has to sum up her life in a word. “It is exciting to be Shruti Haasan, you know. To explain, I did Laabam and Krack at the same time. I took an 18-month break and Laabam was something that was in the making since 2018 before it hit the screens in 2021. The pandemic was not completely over and people rushed to theatres to watch the film and it did great. I had to cash in on the opportunity and did Veera Simha Reddy and Waltair Veerayya. Those two came with a bag written ‘blockbuster’ all over it. Moreover, despite being hero-centric movies, they had a substantial role for me,” elaborates Shruti.

She has her plans perfectly devised and tells us what sort of films she should be doing now. “As a woman and in the phase I am in my life, now is the time for me to do female-driven films. I am now like a shark that has tasted blood and good work is all I am looking for,” she tells us.

Shruti, just like her father Kamal Haasan is way ahead of her time and went global even before pan-Indian became a thing in cinema. “I had this discussion with someone when we were talking about music, work and life. Nowadays it is either global or hyperlocal. The highest selling music artiste now is Puerto Rican rapper, Bad Bunny, who sings in Spanish. The Oscar- winning song is Naatu Naatu because it stayed true to what it is. I am a Tamil girl to the core. Leave alone all these goth and international music. I am a Tamil girl at heart and deeply rooted to my culture. You cannot remove the Tamilian in me or the way I live. My view is western or liberal and we Indians have it in us that we cannot go left or right,” smiles Shruti. She writes her own lyrics, and produces her own music. However, Shruti refrains from committing on when she will don the director’s hat. “I have directors telling me that I should direct sometime, which is a huge compliment. But I have not always been right with my choices of scripts for which I have taken the flak. I have not been the smartest of cookies but now I am in an exciting phase with the people I am collaborating with or the projects I am putting together,” she remarks.

We all are waiting for her to see her on screen with her dad Kamal Haasan. “He is the busiest person I have known. We started off on a project and it didn’t take off. When he is not shooting for Bigg Boss or a movie he is at the party office discussing social issues. He will be the best person to answer this,” she concludes.