Mareena Micheal plays a psychiatric patient in Padma

We saw Mareena Micheal last in the 2020 comedy thriller film Mariyam Vannu Vilakkoothi.Her next is the Anoop Menon directorial Padma, which also stars the actor-director himself and Surabhi Lakshmi. Mareena reveals that she plays a psychiatric patient in the film.She says, “Anoop Menon is a psychiatrist in the movie and interestingly, he often faces people who share with him issues that he faces in his own personal life. One of the cases he handles is that of mine, in the story.” The actress also has the films Randu, Jagala, the anthology Veyil Veezhave and the Tamil film Mathrudarmai coming up.In Jagala, directed by Sreedev Kappur, she plays a character from about a century ago. Mareena says, “The story is centred around Mappila Lahala aka Malabar Rebellion, which happened in 1921. My character’s name is Kunjaathu, and she is the daughter of an ossan (traditional hairdressers) of the region, and my get-up is fashioned after the looks of those times.” In her Tamil film Mathrudarmai, which has VJ Kamal in the lead, she plays the lead role of a depressed techie, reveals the actress.A few months ago, the actress had also contracted COVID-19 and she was in quarantine in her home in Kochi. Mareena recalls that she realised that she was infected, after she landed in Kerala post her Tamil film shoot in Chennai. “I have sinusitis, so initially I thought the symptoms are of that. But then, throat infection and body pain followed, and I took an RT-PCR test, which revealed I am positive,” she remembers. Mareena decided to quarantine in her Kochi home. “I had no major issues as such, initially, and started to train myself on ukulele, alongside frequently doing steaming. But, on day 12, I had terrible back pain and I even thought I would die, due to its intensity. I guess it was because I couldn’t move around much in the house, and the constant sitting and lying down resulted in the pain. I took an online consultation, and by day 5 of the medication I was fine.”Once she felt a little better, Mareena decided to do an RT-PCR test again. “Everyone advised me against it,” she says. “They said that RTPCR might still come as positive and it’s better that I take an antigen test. But, I wanted to be sure. So, I did an RT-PCR itself and thankfully, it came out negative,” she explains.