Aaram Aravinda Swamy’s Milana Nagaraj on career choices she has had to make

It’s not even two months since Milana Nagaraj welcomed her first child, Pari, with husband and fellow actor Darling Krishna. The professional that she is, despite her pressing maternal duties, she has been setting aside time to join the team of her upcoming release Aaram Aravinda Swamy for its promotions. The film, which pairs Milana with Aniissh, has her in the role of a Malayali teacher, besides which she has not revealed much about the character.

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During the promotional interviews, Milana, who along with Krishna had made the successful franchise Love Mocktail, which launched him as a filmmaker, out of pure necessity to give both their careers a boost, spoke at length about choices she’s made, which included working with her husband repeatedly.

Milana Nagaraj: You can't be choosy all the time

Talking to Kannada Pichhar, Milana said that when she was offered Kousalya Supraja Rama, as an actor, she wanted to take it up because of the strength of the character and that director Shashank insisted she do it. But at the time, having already done the Love Mocktail series and some other films with Krishna she was acutely aware of the audience fatigue that could set in from seeing the duo together all the time.

“Keeping aside the fact that Krishna and I are a real-life couple, the thought at the back of my mind was that there was too much repetition. What do you do then? If this character was opposite any other actor, I would have still done it. In my decade in cinema, it’s not like I have only worked with Krishna. But to show variety, I should get those films with other heroes,” she says.

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Milana adds that actors need to keep experimenting from film to film and role to role. “We also need to be seen frequently onscreen. You can’t sit around and be choosy all the time and have to pick the best from what is being offered to you. Aaram Aravind Swamy, for instance, offered me a good role, the story was also good, as was the team, but if you always want this combination to fall in place, you may not get work. Also, as an actress, the issue is all that after spending so many years in cinema and having done roles that brought me recognition, I cannot do a blink-and-miss role,” she says.