Samantha Akkineni on The Family Man’s Raji: People didn’t know I could do this role so convincingly

Samantha Akkineni’s characters like Raji from The Family Man 2 and Swathi from Oh Baby portrayed her in never-before-seen avatars that permanently left a mark on the audience. So, it was a deserving win for her when she was awarded by the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, for her performance as the Sri Lankan soldier Raji on the web series.

In an interview with Pinkvilla, she talked about her training to get into the shoes of Raji that involved locking herself in a dark room for days. She mentioned that she is known to be a bright and cheery person and her portrayal as the deep and intense Raji left people who knew her in astonishment. “They did not know that I could do something like this so convincingly,” she said.

Samantha also talked about bringing something new to her role as Raji and considers it her victory to be able to bring the pain and suffering of her character on screen and to humanize her. “I'm just glad that I was able to do that; when people say we can't take sides or say she is a bad or good guy, and that's my victory...because that is what I really tried hard to bring about,” she said.

She also mentioned that playing Swathi on Oh Baby was another new experience for her as it was her first time playing the character of an old woman in a comedy.

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On winning the Best Performance award at IFFM, she said, “This week, winning this award has been really fun for me as I'm able to enjoy the success of The Family Man 2.”