Exclusive! Kavya Shetty is a human rights activist in film with Vijay Suriya

This is Kavya’s second collaboration with Vijay after Ishtakamya.

Kavya Shetty

Kavya Shetty is mighty pleased to be working with Vijay Suriya again. The duo was last seen together in the 2016 Ishtakamya. “Ishtakamya was a film that worked really well for me. We had played husband and wife there, whereas in this as-yet-untitled thriller, we are not romantically paired. I play a human rights activist called Veda whereas Vijay is a police officer. Both of us have very interesting roles and most of my scenes are with Vijay. The film is being shot in Bengaluru and we have just finished the first schedule,” says Kavya, who is currently on a break after the first schedule.

The actress also recently finished up work on her film with J Karthik, Kaada which is directed by Vishruth Naik (of Ringmaster and Manjari fame). “Kaada is also a thriller, about a psycho serial killer played by Karthik. My character is not completely negative, but it has shades of grey. In fact, when Vishruth approached me for the role, I was apprehensive, because I had never worked on this kind of a subject that has a lot of gore and violence. It’s a proper slasher movie, so to say, surrounding events that happen over two days. But Vishruth convinced me that instead of saying that I have never done something like this before, I should actually try my hand at a new genre. I had to wear the same clothes for the entire shoot, and even kill a character. So, that was new for me and it wasn’t easy, because it was not something I was used to. The film is done, but we may do a bit of reshoot for one portion that we want to do a wee bit better. There is a plan for a song as well, but that will be decided only once the film is edited, because Vishruth is looking at keeping it to a crisp 90-minute run-time only,” explains Kavya.

Up next, though, Kavya is awaiting the release of her film with Ravichandran V, the Kannada remake of the Malayalam film Joseph called Ravi Bopanna. “When I saw the Malayalam original, I thought I wouldn’t have much to do, but Ravi sir got me to play the role in three age groups across the narrative, so it ended up being a lot more. There’s also a film called Sold, by Prerana Agarwal, in which I play a journalist. The film, which is about human trafficking, is probably heading for an OTT release,” says the actress.

What she definitely has for OTT is her upcoming web series Nimagondu Sihi Suddi a comedy about male pregnancy. “Although it is a Kannada show, it has been shot in Goa, so there are characters who only speak in English, Hindi or even Tamil. For instance, my character is an NRI from the UK, so she speaks a lot of English, which makes it easier for the makers to dub it into other languages,” says Kavya.

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