Gopika Udayan debuts playing a college student in 'Kunjeldho'

After the first song from the Asif Ali starrer

Kunjeldho

recently came out, everyone has been wondering who the new actress playing his co-star is.

Debutant

Gopika Udayan

is thrilled that the response to the song is positive and tells us more about her role. A student, born and brought up in Dubai, Gopika says she always had an interest in acting. She says, “I used to do monoact and have also done some ads, and everyone knew I had an interest in acting. When Kunjeldho’s casting call was announced, a friend of my dad forwarded it to him and that’s how I auditioned.”

She says that after various rounds of auditions, the cast also had a workshop. “For those of us who are doing the college scenes in the film, there was a camp helmed by Sidhartha Siva sir, for about three to four days,” she says.

Gopika also hints that her character, Nivedhita, is nothing like her. She explains, “While explaining the script to me, Mathu chettan (director

RJ Mathukutty

) had helped me understand that Nivedhita is nothing like me. She is a reserved, traditional girl who doesn’t have many friends. She is often in her own world, but is a girl with a sparkle in her eyes, always.”

The newbie artiste says that Mathukutty was careful about her staying within the character space, while she was on the set. “For experienced artistes, it is easy to switch between themselves and the character. But for those like me it will take some time to understand that technique. So, he used to alert me every time I would become my extrovert self, so that I don’t forget Nivedhita’s mind space,” says Gopika.

The pandemic delayed the project quite a bit and Gopika was briefly stuck in Kerala post the shoot, but she says because of it, she could dub for the film. “As I was here, Mathu chettan asked why not try it, and I did. It was an experience in itself and something positive that came out of the whole pandemic phase. I also feel the team got time to perfect the movie a lot more, due to the delay,” she says, signing off.