Anoop Menon helped me to step out of my comfort zone: Durga Krishna

Durga Krishna might be just two-films-old at the moment, but she is all set to give her onscreen image a spin, through her upcoming projects.

The actress, who debuted as a naadan girl in Vimanam, plays a bold media personality in Jay Jithin Prakash’s Confession of Cukkoos. In Anoop Menon’s King Fish, she plays another daring woman named Kalindi Paul and is one of its three heroines alongside Niranjana and Nisa N P. In Vrittham, directed by Gauthami Nair, she is a dancer. “It’s great that I am not being pigeonholed as a certain kind of artiste. My characters and appearances are as different as chalk and cheese in all these films,” exclaims Durga.

She is all praise for Anoop Menon, her director in King Fish. “Kalindi, who is a daring woman of substance, isn’t the kind of character we often get to watch in Malayalam. Anoopettan helped me immensely, pushing me out of my comfort zone, to play her convincingly. Thanks to him, I could discover the actor in me better, through Kalindi.” Director Ranjith also plays a prominent role in the movie and Durga has many combination scenes with him. “We met on King Fish’s set for the first time and he turned out to be a fun person. I had a scene in the film in which I play cricket, and it was Ranjithettan helped me with it,” she says. Durga enjoyed the time with the other two heroines as well. “Anoopettan used to write dialogues on the spot, and we used to sit together and learn them by rote. So, by the time the schedule was over, all of us knew each other’s dialogues well. This set will remain one of my favourites ever,” she quips. Meanwhile, her character in Confession of Cuckoos is documentary filmmaker, who works against child abuse.



Durga, who is a dancer in real life, is happy that she could enact one on screen too, through Vrittham. “Unlearning my dancer ways was tough for me when I debuted as an actress, as the body language often crept in while giving shots for characters, with no background in dance. For such a person, this was a dream role,” she says. Durga admits it was a bit tough to put the character aside even when the shoot was over. Most crew members of Vrittham were women and she feels that working for the film felt different. “I really felt the power of women, working in this project!” Durga says.

She also has a project named Kuttimama, directed by V M Vinu, coming up. Durga shares screen with veteran actor Sreenivasan and his son Dhyan in the movie. She also has a cameo in Dhyan’s Love Action Drama.