Devayani: The Arcadian angel, taking long strides in tinsel town with all the attendant fanfare.

Q: You have been hailed as a “Goddess of love” by the fans. Is that just because of the role in “Kadal Kottai” or more to do with your Venus like beauty?

A: I am a very sensitive girl, with lot of warmth and tenderness felt for the fellow human beings. After “Kadal Kottai” happened to me, I graduated to mature and lady like roles in films like “Soorya Vamsam” and “Marumalarchi”. My characterization in those two films, depicting the virtues of womanhood, fetched a lot of fan following in Tamilnadu. I played the part of woman, who is beautiful but not proud, educated but not flaunting her wits about, lovable and earthy like a school girl and a perfect foil to the man in her life, helping and supporting him through the thick and thin of life. 

Q: You are mostly seen in sari-clad and sensitive roles in most of your films; either glamour doll roles don’t suit you or the Tamil audience wouldn’t relish it; which is true?

A: I can’t feel sorry for having been cast in sari-clad roles. But, I think I look pretty in a trendy wear like jeans and T-shirt too. Both suit me well. In “Friends” my costumes are largely of the trendy kind. But the famed south Indian saree is the best thing to put on if you want to look regal, and lady-like.


Q: You won plaudits from the pundits as Bharathi’s Chellamma; would you take an impractical poet as your hubby in real life? 

A: Nothing wrong in that. Bharathi is a great visionary poet. Living and sharing his utopian dreams might have been a heady and divine experience for Chellamma, though she had to bear the brunt of his queer ways of living. A girl should be blessed to get married to a poet like Bharathi.

Q: You are blessed with a baby face and have got a strong streak of child like innocence in you. Is it a boon or a bane?

A: Well, it is a boon really. Any face that radiates “the milk of human kindness” will have an everlasting appeal. My cherubic face helps me to mirror the core values of comforting, mothering, and empathizing qualities of a woman.

Q: Devayani is endowed with beauty and brains. Your comments please?

A: Yeah, it helps you to be a thinking actress and the concept of beauty lies very much in the eyes of the beholder. You might say I am both brainy and beautiful, but I wouldn’t give myself a perfect ten. I am as good as I should be.

Q: What is your recurring dream?

A: Like I would often dream of me receiving the national award from the President of India. In the other dream, I had achieved absolute stardom in Hindi films.

Q: On what occasions do you lie?

A: When it doesn’t affect anyone’s interest. When I go late to shooting spot, I do not have to lie, because it happens once in a blue moon. Punctuality is something of a good habit with me. 

Q: Define love from your own perspective?

A; Love is a primary emotion. Film folks do fall in and out of love. We fall in love with someone or the other, everyday. But I haven’t fallen for any one. I have not met someone special till now.

Q: You would like to be reborn as?

A: A guy and a hero.

Q: The vegetable you resemble most?

A: Ladies finger.

Q: You are terrified of?

A: Back-baiters.

Q: Your favourite night activity?

A: Sleeping.

Q: Which other actress is an object of your admiration? 

A: Sridevi.

Q: Tell us about your academic education.

A: I did my B.com in Mumbai University.

Q: Your favourite book?

A: Chicken soup for the soul. 

Q: Are you a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian?

A: I am a strict non-vegetarian.

Q: One role you would just grab it like that?

A: Like the one Sridevi did in “Moondram Pirai”.

Q: What sort of fan mails you get everyday?

A: Lot of letters from brother and sister fans. And a few poetic love-letters.

Updated on 20  -Jul - 2003

Compiled by U. Bharat.

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