Aishwarya Rajesh

I like men who respect women.

Kanaa' is a rare opportunity; it's about women's cricket, and they've trusted me with this film. I trained for nearly four hours every day with three coaches.

The best memories are the ones where I celebrated Deepavali as a kid.

When I signed 'Kaaka Muttai,' a lot of directors told me that I shouldn't be doing the role of a mother so early in my career. But I went ahead, as I aspire to do challenging roles.

My aim is to do all genres, both entertainment and art.

I play the leading lady in Arjun Rampal's latest production, 'Daddy'. It's a very bold, performance-oriented role, and the team had originally cast someone else. However, when Arjun saw my performance in 'Kaaka Muttai,' he roped me in.

Any actor can be glamorous, but not everybody can be a performer. That's why I'm focusing more on the performance side. I feel that's what even people want from me.

I always give weightage to performance more than the length of my character. That has always been my criteria for signing a film.

Daddy' is an amazing Bollywood debut for me. I don't play a typical Bollywood heroine. It's a performance-oriented role.

In Chennai, we have the beach for entertainment, but in places like Trichy, Salem, and Coimbatore, movies are the only entertainment.

I was not wary of playing a mother on screen but wasn't sure if I could do justice to it. Would I be able to showcase that kind of overpowering love without being a 'real' mother?

I felt that I should become a film actress first, and then come back to serials and earn good remuneration from it.