Stars in her eyes

Here’s yet another new young face knocking on the doors of stardom in Kannada cinema. With dreams in her eyes and an ambition to succeed, Spandana is now ready to take the big leap into the acting world. Spandana has been rechristened Ramya by Parvathamma Rajkumar for their home production Abhi, which has just completed shooting and dubbing. Says Spandana, “The idea of people calling me Ramya has not yet sunk into my mind. Though it is not my name, I am happy that Amma gave me this name. I felt awkward when people called me Ramya on the sets. But, I guess, Amma and the banner have been lucky for everyone.”

After BCom, Spandana was planning to join the Sheetal Designer Studio in Mumbai with Hemanth Trivedi and Manish Malhotra before this offer came her way. She has taken part in ramp shows and was crowned Miss Country Club in 2001.

Spandana, who hails from Mandya, studied in a residential school at Ooty. “I have been away from home for at least 15 years. It’s only during the last three years that I have been with my parents. I like to be myself – free and independent.” 

How did Abhi happen? Says she, “I had a few good offers such as Neenagaagi, Dumbee and Appu. I was on the verge of being selected for Appu, but I had to slim down then, and so I missed my chance. They did take some time to finalise the heroine for Abhi. I was a nervous wreck on the first day of shooting when they had not finalised as yet on me. Finally, I got the nod.”

Interestingly, heroines who have made it big in Kannada cinema have all been associated with Rajkumar’s home production banner in some way or the other -- be it successful actresses like Sudha Rani, Shruthi, Anu Prabhakar, Prema, Malashri or now Rakshita. Ramya is quite hopeful that she would join the ranks of these heroines who have stuck gold in Kannada cinema.

Preethisu on the floors

H Hanumanthaiah had written a Kannada play Dudukida Maava Sidukida Sose, which was staged then by a North Karnataka drama company. Now, he is producing the film Preethisu based on the same story with Vishal and Ashwini in the lead. 
The film is directed by Siddaraju who earlier worked with Saiprakash and Mahendar as assistant director. Teja and Lokesh will be scoring the music and canning the camera respectively. While Vishal is acting in his fourth film with Ninagagi having released, Ashwini is a rank newcomer doing her II PUC in Sarala Devi Junior College. The story is about how a boy and a girl who grow up together as childhood friends but are unable to express their love towards each other. The hero’s sister is aware of her brother’s love towards the girl. Does childhood friendship turn into love is what the film all about, according to Siddaraju. 
The film also stars Abhijit, Panchami, Michael Madhu, Vidya Murthy, Ranjitha and Bhavya among others.

SS