How Jawan actor Nayanthara blazed a path to Lady Superstardom

“Woman-centric” cinema can also be mainstream, Nayanthara has proved. (Image via Twitter/NayantharaU)

Twenty years since she made her debut with the Malayalam family drama Manassinakkare (2003), Nayanthara is playing the female lead in one of Bollywood’s most anticipated films of the year – Jawan. Acting opposite her is the Badshah himself, Shah Rukh Khan. For a woman star, this is nothing short of a fairytale, but as readers who’ve read the original versions of fairytales would know, these stories are often brutal.

Lock..Aim..Fire#Jawan releasing worldwide on 7th September 2023, in Hindi, Tamil & Telugu. pic.twitter.com/mkHr2d25qd

— Nayanthara (@NayantharaU) July 17, 2023

To get to where she is, Nayanthara had to make and remake herself several times. Born Diana Mariam Kurian, Nayanthara was working as a part-time model when she caught the eye of veteran Malayalam director Sathyan Anthikkad. In his film Manassinakkare, which is about an elderly widow whose family is fed up with her eccentricities, Nayanthara played a sharp-tongued resident of the village. The film became a huge hit, running for over 200 days.

After that, Nayanthara did two more Malayalam films – Fazil’s Vismayathumbathu (2004) and Shaji Kailas’s Natturajavu (2004) with Mohanlal and Pramod Pappan’s Thaskara Veeran (2005) and Rappakal (2005) with Mammootty. But after this, she shifted to the Tamil and Telugu industries completely for the next few years. The reasons could be many, from better pay and bigger films to unconfirmed rumours about a superstar in the industry targeting her. But whatever it was, Nayanthara never looked back, and forged a place for herself in these competitive and male-dominated industries.

Looking at her filmography, it is evident that Nayanthara set out to seek stardom rather than be recognized for her acting skills. The Tamil industry at the time was ruled by Simran and Jyothika. Another Malayali actor, Asin, who had made her debut in Tamil and Telugu films just a couple of years before Nayanthara, was also a popular choice and so was Trisha. To establish herself, Nayanthara needed to be seen in big films opposite the stars who counted – and that’s what she went after. Her role as Durga in Chandramukhi (2005) opposite Rajinikanth was a big step up in the Tamil film industry, though it was Jyothika as the antagonist who got the lion’s share of the screen time between the two female characters.

Another major hit that Nayanthara acted in during this period was AR Murugadoss’s Ghajini (2005), but here too, it was another female actor who walked away with the accolades – Asin. Still, Nayanthara continued to land big films opposite Tamil and Telugu stars – Tulasi (2007) with Venkatesh was a big hit –  but it was with Billa (2007) that she emerged as a star who was here to stay. Simran and Jyothika had, by then, slowed down and there was space at the top for a new queen. As the dangerous and glamorous Sasha, Nayanthara’s bikini scene in the film became a talking point.

With films like Yaaradi Nee Mohini (2008), Nayanthara proved that she had more to her than just glamour. Playing a short-tempered young woman who is conflicted about love, the film had several emotional scenes where she had to shed her star image and appear as an ordinary person. 2010 was a big year for the actor, when she made her Kannada debut with Upendra’s blockbuster Super (2010) and also had hits in the other southern languages.

But the following year was a quiet one for Nayanthara on the professional front. She had just one release – the mythological film Sri Rama Jayam (2011), in which she played Sita. Nayanthara was all set to marry actor, director and famed choreographer Prabhu Deva who was in the middle of an ugly and public divorce. Years later, actor and politician Radha Ravi, who has never bothered to hide his misogyny, would question the decision to cast Nayanthara as Sita in the film. Radha Ravi was alluding to the glamorous roles she played and her relationships with co-stars – and in a rare turn of events, the industry and political class would bat for Nayanthara who had become much bigger than Radha Ravi in the intervening years.

The wedding didn’t happen, but the setbacks in her personal life only pushed Nayanthara to come back stronger in her career. Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum (2012) and Raja Rani (2013) both had substantial roles for her. The latter film, inspired by Mani Ratnam’s Mouna Ragam (1986) and Milana (2007), especially made an impact and presented a new Nayanthara. She plays a young woman who is depressed over a heartbreak and decides to get married just to please her father. The angry Regina could have easily become a caricature, but Nayanthara brought a lot of heart into her performance and the audience fell in love with her for it.

The next phase in her career was when she owned the title ‘Lady Superstar’. Movies with women as solo leads tend to be small budget films that are centred on what are considered to be “women’s issues”. But Nayanthara refused to be constrained by such industry rules. She starred in Sekhar Kammula’s Anaamika (2014), the Telugu remake of the Vidya Balan blockbuster Kahaani (2012), and later did Ashwin Saravanan’s horror film Maya (2015) which became a superhit.

Her ability to bring crowds to theatres without a male lead put her at the top of the hierarchy of southern heroines. She quickly became the highest paid woman actor across the four industries, with hits like Thani Oruvan (2015) and Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015), doing films led by male stars but simultaneously carving a space for herself as a solo performer. Her role as a rape survivor in the Malayalam film Puthiya Niyamam (2016) also won her critical acclaim.

Aramm (2017), directed by Gopi Nainar, is easily among Nayanthara’s best films. She played District Collector Madhivadhani in this political drama where a young child falls into a borewell. For the first time, a Tamil film led by a woman star grossed over Rs 1 crore in the state in its opening weekend. “Woman-centric” cinema could also be mainstream, Nayanthara proved. In Nelson Dilipkumar’s Kolamaavu Kokila (2018), she played a demure drug mule who has to stand up for herself and her family. The song ‘Kalyana Vayasu’ from the film, where comedian Yogi Babu fantasizes about romancing her, went viral and was one of the major reasons for the film’s success.

Like her male colleagues who have their own signature style and are particular about retaining it, no matter what character they’re playing, Nayanthara too prioritizes her star value over the characters she’s playing. From her hair colour (there’s even a joke about this in Mookuthi Amman (2020) where she plays a goddess) and makeup to her clothes, she asserts her star persona in every film she does.

With her husband Vignesh Shivn, who is a director, Nayanthara launched the production company Rowdy Pictures (he’d directed her in Naanum Rowdy Dhaan, after all) in 2021. She continues to make news and controversy for her professional and personal decisions, starring in big budget films opposite stars like Vijay, Ajith and Rajinikanth, doing films as the solo lead, and becoming mother to a pair of twins through surrogacy in 2022.

But though she is, without a doubt, the biggest female star in the south, she hasn’t done enough with her star power to push boundaries for other women in the industry. In 2016, when director Suraj made disparaging remarks about heroines wearing short clothes in films to attract the audience, he named Tamannaah in the conversation, but Nayanthara waded into the controversy and slammed him. However, when the #MeToo movement broke out in Indian film industries in 2018, Nayanthara was conspicuously silent and did not take a public stance. Further, she also invited actor Dileep to her wedding – a man who stands accused of being the mastermind of the plan to abduct and gangrape a prominent woman actor of the Malayalam film industry. Though she produced and starred in Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal (2022) with Samantha, another A-list star, there are whispers about her getting other women actors removed from her films in the past.

Such moves have given rise to the perception that while Nayanthara certainly stands up for herself, she is less reluctant to do so for other women. Even if that might be the case, Nayanthara’s survival in the film industry is doubtless an inspiration for other women actors who are jostling for space in hero-driven narratives. Until a decade ago, women actors in their mid-30s would have been written off or pushed to do sister and mother roles. That she is still here and not just surviving, but thriving, speaks volumes about her determination to stake her claim. In that sense, she is a jawan too.