Broadening her scope with the international project Chennai Story, Shruti is proud that female actors are playing by their own rules and increasing career longevity
Shruti Haasan
An appearance in Treadstone (2019), followed by British psychological thriller The Eye (2023), and now, Chennai Story—Shruti Haasan is peppering her filmography, dominated by Telugu and Tamil movies, with interesting international projects. Starring in Philip John’s directorial venture was an easy decision for the actor. To her, the story’s setting felt extremely personal. “I grew up in Chennai. Though I haven’t lived there in years, I will always be a Chennai girl at heart. So, to have a film centred on the city was one of the factors that made me say yes,” she smiles.
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Haasan, who ended 2023 with a hit in Salaar: Part 1—Ceasefire, finds herself in an exciting phase of her career as she balances her acting commitments with her musical pursuits. Reaching this point hasn’t been easy. “Between 2014 and 2016, I was working on six films at a time. I put acting at the forefront and music on the backburner because the former required discipline. But then it came to a point where I stepped back from the rat race. When I took that break, music returned to the forefront. [Juggling the two is] a battle, but one that I love fighting.”
That battle becomes harder when you are a woman. But the actor is proud to be in an era when female artistes are questioning age-old gender norms and playing by their own rules. “A lot of people don’t realise that women have changed. We aren’t doing it their way anymore. The conversation around a heroine’s shelf life exists, but it’s no longer the prison sentence that it used to be for a career. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us, including my mother [Sarika]. If my mum had debuted at the time that I did, her career would have been very different.” She notes that following one’s artistic dreams is tough for her male peers, too. “A number of actors would like to try something different, but they can’t. Either they don’t have the courage, or they aren’t allowed to do so. That’s where someone like my dad [Kamal Haasan] stands apart. It took him a great deal of courage to make those artistic choices.”
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