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IFFI 2025: Khushboo Sundar and Suhasini Maniratnam Break Down their Craft at ‘Luminary Icons’ Workshop
The two veteran actors offered a rare mix of technique, philosophy and humour as they unpacked their journeys, acting methods and the discipline behind powerful screen performances.
At the 56th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, The Hollywood Reporter India attended The Luminary Icons: Creative Bonds and Fierce Performances, an in-conversation workshop that turned into an engaging, often hilarious, and unexpectedly rigorous exploration of acting. Led by Khushboo Sundar and Suhasini Maniratnam—two south Indian s whose careers span languages, industries and mediums—the session focused not merely on performance but on the deeper discipline and worldview that sustain it.
The format was loose and lively: Suhasini asked and answered her own questions, Khushboo jumped in with anecdotes and emphatic asides, and the two often finished each other’s thoughts. What united them was a shared belief that cinema, no matter its label, demands total commitment. “I wouldn’t differentiate between a parallel film and a commercial film. The preparation is the same,” Khushboo said, underlining the seriousness with which she approaches every role.
Suhasini, who is also trained in cinematography and direction, grounded her advice in technical precision as much as emotion. She urged young actors to learn their lines in their native language—“Don’t write them in Roman. How will you get the pronunciation right?”—and to understand eye lines, timing and how the camera cheats. “Learn to cheat the camera and play for the camera,” she said. “You can’t get carried away with realism beyond a point,” she said.
Both actors stressed old-school discipline: doing their own makeup in exactly 15 minutes, hitting their marks, and respecting time. “Young people should take note,” Khushboo said, laughing, but the message was firm.
Suhasini’s stories of early setbacks drew applause. “My first Telugu film was a flop,” she recalled. “But I did 100 films in Telugu.” It was a reminder not to romanticise luck. “Persistence,” she emphasised, “is what works in commercial cinema.” She added one of the afternoon’s most striking lines: “Between action and cut is jannanam (life) and maranam (death).”
The workshop also included spontaneous performances: Sundar lip-synced to “Nee Engae En Anbe” from Chinna Thambi to demonstrate emotional precision independent of language, while Suhasini performed a passage from Silapathikaram’s Kannagi story, bringing classical poise to the stage.
From the audience, Nasreen Munni Kabir asked what they’d tell their younger selves. Khushboo smiled: “I would tell her to do a little better.” Suhasini, in contrast, didn’t hesitate: “I would tell her that I am ashamed of her for how conservative she was. I would ask her to be more liberated.”
The session offered real craft and real clarity with two women unafraid to laugh at themselves and at the myths that still surround acting.