Actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu has been termed 'jinxed' by Tamil cinema - much like Vidya Balan was in her early years in Kerala, till Bollywood's Parineeta catapulted her to the skies.
Samantha Ruth Prabhu plays the female lead in Anjaan ((Anjaanmovie/Facebook)
However, Lingusamy's
, opening tomorrow, may wipe that word off Samantha's slate. She plays heroine in the film.
While Balan missed her first steps in Malayalam cinema and was written off by the Thiruvananthapuram mandarins, the man from Bengal, Pradeep Sarkar, saw the spark in her and pushed her to light in his Parineeta. And it worked. Lingusamy could be Samantha's magic genie.
Samantha has had a fair bit of success in the Telugu film industry, but her eastward march had been fraught with distress and disappointment. Gautham Menon's Ye Maaya Chesave (2010) in Telugu was critically acclaimed, but when the director cast her in his Tamil work, Neethaane En Ponvasantham, two years later, it bombed at the boxoffice. Even her first Tamil movie, Moscowin Kavery, was a disaster. So the Tamil industry bid adieu to her.
{{/usCountry}}Samantha has had a fair bit of success in the Telugu film industry, but her eastward march had been fraught with distress and disappointment. Gautham Menon's Ye Maaya Chesave (2010) in Telugu was critically acclaimed, but when the director cast her in his Tamil work, Neethaane En Ponvasantham, two years later, it bombed at the boxoffice. Even her first Tamil movie, Moscowin Kavery, was a disaster. So the Tamil industry bid adieu to her.
{{/usCountry}}But, call it Samantha's stars or a helmer's pluck, she will be seen in Anjaan, acting as superstar Suriya's lover - and no less. The film is all spice and no substance, and Samantha is all glamour and glitz with a hot-pants appearance in a song. Well, who cares. Perhaps not even Samantha, who is pinning big-time hope on a big-time production.
However, if Anjaan stutters, Samantha may well choke. She herself has described the work as 'make or break'.
Samantha -- who grew up in Pallavaram, an un-happening suburb in Chennai, and changed two public buses to attend college, leading a very middleclass existence -- is yearning to spin Anjaan into success. With her oomph, if not anything else.