Actor Priya Mani, who tied the knot with Mustafa Raj in an intimate ceremony in Bengaluru in 2017, has opened up about how her film career witnessed a transition after marriage. “The roles coming to me post marriage are different,” The Family Man star tells News18 Showsha in an exclusive interview.
The 39-year-old actress has no qualms about revealing that she was unsure of how her career would shape after becoming a married woman. “Initially, I used to wonder if the industry would accept me after I get married,” she said. “It used to happen earlier in the south industries… When married heroines after giving time to their families would get back to work following a hiatus of a year or two, they didn’t get lead roles. They would probably get parts of a sister-in-law or character roles.”
However, with the kind of roles coming her way today, Priya agrees that times have changed for good. “Now, people are accepting married women as well to play leads and main characters as opposed to cameos. Such parts are beautifully written and so, there’s nothing to complain,” she remarks.
While the Virata Parvam (2022) and Chaarulatha (2012) actor is happy that marriage doesn’t being about a halt in a female actor’s career, she emphasises that it definitely puts a ‘responsibility’ on them as far as their choices are concerned. “I’m happy that the industry and more so the audience have accepted the fact that marriage doesn’t put an end to a heroine’s career. Having said that, I feel that maybe marriage is an added responsibility on the girl’s side to see to it that the role is proper and there’s no awkwardness onscreen because she’s answerable to her in-laws,” she says.
Priya Mani Raj might have earned wide critical acclaim and commercial success over a career spanning two decades but it was the series, The Family Man, which shot her to pan-Indian fame. But it wasn’t the first time that she was seen playing a mother in it. In fact, she has been essaying the role of a mother from a young age, be it in films or television commercials. Recently, she played a mother again in the web show, Sarvam Shakthi Mayam.
She tells us that she was in two minds about playing such roles but much like how the situation has changed for married women, she’s happy that the characters of a mother has witnessed a drastic evolution over the years. “Initially, I was probably a bit apprehensive about playing a mother onscreen. In the Tamil industry, you get typecast very easily. But that also depends on how the character of a mother and her equation with her children are portrayed. Right now, people say it’s passé and that it doesn’t matter anymore even if you play a mother onscreen and I agree with them,” says the actor, who will next be seen in superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan.
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