Harshika Poonacha and her gang of giggling friends were coming out of a coffee shop when a man accosted her and wanted to know if she was interested in playing the heroine in his forthcoming movie.
Then a Class 10 student, Harshika was certain that he was a prankster and not a filmmaker, and didn’t bother to reply. But her friends told him that she was a dancer, head of their cultural team and that if he was serious about the offer, he should talk to her dad at her house, not far from where they were.
This was how the schoolgirl got catapulted to the world of movies through the Kannada film PUC — it was no trickster who made the offer but filmmaker Ramesh who was looking for a girl of her age group to do the lead role. In the next two years, however, she concentrated on her studies, and during her engineering course, she balanced studies and films so amazingly well that she not only passed her course with distinction but also established her foothold in the Kannada industry.
“I had offers from software biggies but I had to make a choice between films and a corporate job and I chose the former,” says Harshika, who has been shooting in Kochi for Charminar, her debut film in Malayalam.
After spending a month in Kochi and shooting in the city as well as Thrissur, she is literally gushing about Mollywood and says that she is sure to miss the industry as well as Kochi now that they have wrapped up the shoot. Originally from Coorg, she can speak several languages and she has added Malayalam to the list. “I speak so fluently that they now say that I am ready for dubbing,” she says.
Harshika plays a Malayali girl settled in Bengaluru in the movie directed by Ajith C Lokesh and her co-stars are Ashwin Kkumar, who played the villain in Jacobinte Swargarajyam, and Hemanth Menon.
“Charminar is a love story but there is a suspense that is linked to the title, so I can’t reveal more about the plot,” says the actress, who is looking forward to acting in more Malayalam films.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> Entertainment> Malayalam> Movies> News / by Sujit Chandrakumar / TNN / December 17th, 2017
