“I have been waiting for good work and when 35 came my way, I could not let it go. It would have been an injustice had I not taken it up,” says actor Nivetha Thomas, when we meet for an interview at Ramanaidu Studios, Hyderabad. Directed by debutant Nanda Kishore Emani, 35 - Chinna Katha Kaadu (not a small story), releasing in theatres on September 6, is a family drama set in Tirupati.
The last time Nivetha was seen in a Telugu film was in Saakini Daakini (2022). In 2023, she featured in the Malayalam film Enthada Sajji , marking her return to the language after nine years. The unavoidable question is whether good films are rare to come her way, across languages.
Nivetha considers the question and says, “People think I am difficult to please, which is not true. I wholeheartedly enjoy listening to narrations and reading scripts in different genres. There have been many cases when I have come across interesting scripts but after a few discussions, if I felt that they had not shaped up to their potential, I have stepped back so that they can proceed with another actor.
I am game to work in five or six films each year but I would like all of them to be different.” Those who have followed Nivetha’s filmography would know that she was eight when she debuted as a child actor and went on to work in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil films. She concurs that fame and spotlight are not the driving force for her choices.
An architect and an actor, she reckons that there have been time.