Aparna Balamurali reacts to National Film Award win for Soorarai Pottru, calls working in film 'a life-changing journey'

Aparna Balamurali, who won the National Film Award for best actress on Friday, has said that working on her award-winning role in Soorarai Pottru was a ‘life-changing journey’.

At the 68th National Film Awards announced on Friday, Tamil film Soorarai Pottru emerged as the biggest winner, taking home five awards, including three of the big ones--best feature film, best actor, and best actress. The film’s female lead Aparna Balamurali won her first National Award for her performance. On Saturday, the actor reacted to the win, calling her association with the film ‘life-changing’.

Aparna Balamurali and Suriya in a still from Soorarai Pottru. Both actors won National Film Awards for their performances in the film.

In a statement, Aparna said, “It was a life-changing journey for me to work on the film alongside such exemplary talents like Sudha ma’am (Sudha Kongara, the film’s director) and Suriya (who also won the National Award for best actor). Receiving a National Film Award for Soorarai Pottru is truly an honour as well as a responsibility to work even harder on my upcoming films.”

The 26-year-old actor has worked in Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu films in a career that began with the 2015 film Oru Second Class Yathra. Since then, Aparna has worked in several films, getting noticed for her work in Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016) and Sunday Holiday (2017). Soorarai Pottru is considered to be her breakthrough role. As per reports, since the film’s success, Aparna has been working in over half a dozen films in three languages.

Soorarai Pottru won two other awards on Friday with Shalini Usha Nair and Sudha Kongara winning the award for best original screenplay and GV Prakash Kumar winning the award for best background score.

Directed by Sudha Kongara and produced by Suriya, Jyotika, and Rajsekar Pandian, Soorarai Pottru also stars Mohan Babu and Paresh Rawal in prominent roles. The film is loosely based on the life of Simplifly Deccan founder GR Gopinath. It premiered digitally on Amazon Prime Video in 2020. A Hindi remake is currently being shot with Akshay Kumar in lead. Suriya is doing a cameo in the remake.