Samantha Ruth Prabhu presents a delightful contraction — her recent release Maa Inti Bangaram, in which she plays a sari-clad saviour, is a ₹100-crore grossing hit and has positioned her as a leading action star. But she’s also a glowing expectant mother. She speaks with candour about crafting performances, waiting for life to change completely, why she is a serial entrepreneur, and why she considered giving up films. What comes through, loud and clear, is her undying resilience.
Edited excerpts from the conversation:
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER INDIA: There’s so much to celebrate — you’re now a bona fide ₹100 crore action star, and there’s a baby on the way.
SAMANTHA RUTH PRABHU: Wow, I can’t even believe it’s true.
THR INDIA: In the opening shot of Maa Inti Bangaaram (MIB) Swarna puts on her bangles to meet her husband’s family, and later, takes them off to go to war for that same family. Did playing her make you tap into your own resilience and ability to reinvent?
PRABHU: I think Raj (Nidimoru; co-producer, husband) wrote this, and when (actor) Sai Pallavi couldn’t play the part, he asked me to and he rewrote a lot of it. It's loosely inspired by my life. I don’t beat up bad guys in real life, but I think it was an exaggerated version of the resilience that most women around us have — who keep getting back up. So, that made it to the script, and somewhere the lines between Swarna, me, Jhansi, all got pretty blurry.
THR INDIA: This is arguably your finest performance. You’ve said having Raj around makes you a better actor?
PRABHU: When you work with someone who’s seen you through it all, you’re not scared. Usually there are boundaries, you wonder if you try something and it comes out wrong, will people be judging you behind the monitor? With Raj, I didn’t have those boundaries. There was such trust to go the extra mile knowing you’re in safe hands. Most scenes in MIB were single takes, because I was part of the process from the seed of the idea. I knew this character, I knew her world, so it was easy to slip into it.
THR INDIA: Raj and D.K. once told me they treat actors like ice out of a fridge — the first few takes are the best. Is that you, instinctively?
PRABHU: Definitely. I progressively get worse with every take, not better — I’ve been told.
THR INDIA: Your first film, Moscowin Kaveri, was almost 20 years ago. At an MIB event, you said you’d almost considered quitting, and Raj talked you out of it. Why did you want to quit?
PRABHU: Once I took that break for a year, I felt like I wanted to do other things. And I was also a bit scared, because I was told, from a health perspective, to take it easy and to maybe find other things to do. (She was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Myositis in 2022). So, I took that advice seriously, and tried to find things I genuinely believed in. I invested in many, many businesses. I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’ve been told and I was really enjoying life.
But something about coming back on screen, especially after I’d had to shoot Citadel when I was unwell — that wasn’t a pleasant experience to go through, and I didn’t want a whole set waiting, people’s time wasted. So, I thought, let me produce MIB, let me be happy behind the scenes, watching amazing films I truly believed in get made. I’d made peace with that decision. But he decided otherwise, and producing alongside Himank (Duvvuru; co-producer) and Raj, with him there on set, gave me the courage. After a bit of reluctance, I agreed to do it, and I’m so happy that I did. Every single time, Raj seems to have more faith in me than I do. I remember with Citadel too, I was ready to give up. I sent them the mail, but they didn’t give up on me. Same with MIB.
THR INDIA: How did he talk you out of it?
PRABHU: Mostly, Sai Pallavi turning it down, and I knew there was gold in the script, that this was something women would want to watch. I couldn’t see this project not happen.
THR INDIA: Women and families are coming back to theatres for this film, including a huge overseas opening. As producers, you, Raj and Himank also set it up to succeed by keeping the budget tight and shooting it in 54 days, right?
PRABHU: We’re all extremely ambitious, but I don’t think you need to be reckless to achieve big ambitions. I didn’t know if I could sell a single ticket. I hadn’t had a film release in three years, and the pre-release buzz wasn’t exactly encouraging. We weren’t embarrassed to admit that we had no idea if this would work, if we could bring anyone to the theatre. So, we kept the budget as tight as possible. I remember shooting the entire bus sequence, the climax, and some filler scenes all in a single day. Everyone was working way beyond their capacity.
But this movie was special from day one; there was a positive energy around it, and everyone who worked on it wanted to give a little extra. I think that’s what made it what it is. It doesn’t belong to one person. Usually, a film that looks the way MIB does needs a little more time and a little more budget too. We could have used that but I didn’t think it needed anything extra. We borrowed from within our circle, friends, family, put in our own money, did the best we could, and hoped for the best.
THR INDIA: It looked convincing — the world was fully there.
PRABHU: Absolutely, we made sure of that. It really, really surprised everyone, including myself. I mean, I’d dreamed about this result, but it took me a while to believe it was actually happening. I remember the first weekend thinking, ‘Okay, let’s see Monday’. Monday came, so I thought, ‘Let’s see if it rolls through the weekend’, and it just kept going.
What was most heartening was seeing women of all ages, and families and children, in the theatre, dressed in their finery like it was a festival, like they’d come to celebrate. It’s been over a month, and it’s still extremely emotional to watch what’s happened with this film.
THR INDIA: What was that first day like, after three years, opening to such big numbers?
PRABHU: It wasn’t something that happened overnight. People saw it as an opening-day collection, an overnight success, but everything that transpired in the two years before MIB is what led to it. Step by step, fixing, evolving, making better decisions and not just this film, but who I am as a person and an actor.
THE RESET
THR INDIA: You’ve said those two years were mostly spent at home, fixing your health. That’s a long time for an actress. How did you get through it?
PRABHU: Up until then, I had built my identity on goals, results, performance, discipline; everything was measured by doing. For the first time, when I was sick, I had to make peace with the fact that I wasn’t contributing in any way. And I had to sit with this question: Who am I when I’m not contributing? I had to build value behind the person who I was, not what I was doing. And that journey has been the most important journey of my life. The time I give a project, or people, or my peace, my health, has great value, and I should be extremely careful with the projects I give this time and mind to.
As a result, the number of projects, the brands I endorse, have dramatically reduced. It might look smaller, but it has become a lot bigger, in a very purposeful way. I’ve had to realign and understand that, and this is how I’d like to do things from here on.
THR INDIA: Your life doesn’t look smaller at all. You’re a producer, an actor, host of a wellness podcast, host of Tamil MasterChef.
PRABHU: But when I came back to work, I withdrew from at least 15 to 20 brand endorsements. Not only did I not work for two years, but I also came back and withdrew from these endorsements, because the way I approach things had to change. All that belief has paid off and those brands are doing really well too, overall.
THR INDIA: When artistes are professional and personal partners, are there rules of engagement? Is there space where you don’t talk about movies, or is it all one seamless blend?
PRABHU: There’s absolutely nothing we don’t talk about, and we always have a lot to talk about. I worked with Raj first as an actor, so I know how to do that, way before everything else happened. I have the greatest respect for him and value his judgement more than anyone else’s. He’s easy, he has your best interests at heart, and we hardly ever disagree because we listen to each other.
He’s definitely helped me become a better actor. I can’t say I’ve helped him become a better director — no, I can’t. I don’t think there are any rules at all. Even if there were, they wouldn’t last.
THR INDIA: There’s a monologue before the action begins, about who the perfect daughter-in-law is — beautiful, good-natured, must cook, sew, sing. This is still somewhat true for the Indian film heroine — beautiful and talented but always attractive, your own person but never making too much money, snapping back into shape immediately after a baby or the trolls come out. How do you navigate that?
PRABHU: Over time I’ve learned to drown the noise. I keep a diary of things I’m grateful for and a checklist of things I want to do; MIB was on there. When your life becomes this focused and purposeful, it’s easier to not entertain other people’s opinions as your own.
I can never change what someone has already decided to think about me, so why waste time trying to convince them when there are more important things to do? Maybe on a particularly vulnerable day it still hurts, but that’s become far less now.
THR INDIA: You’ve toughened up. Do you think your health issues and personal struggles made you a better actor — that suffering finds its way into your art?
PRABHU: That’s true. As an actor, you build confidence, you learn to walk into any room and have people assume you belong there, because you exude it, this confidence you’ve carefully built through the way you look, your workouts, your routines. But when some health issue happens, sickness really doesn’t care how confident you look.
I felt such a loss of identity when that happened to me, like I had no control. It took me a while to understand that I do have control over how I respond to this.
I don’t have to fake confidence, but there are other lessons I needed to learn alongside it — resilience, faith, hope — important qualities that sickness taught me. As a result, everything got better: the way I lived my life, my performance, all of it got a lot more real. As much as I’d rather not have gone through it, it taught me lessons that have become an invaluable part of my life.
THR INDIA: To be able to see it that way is amazing — it’s so much easier to feel victimised, or to feel ‘Why me?’
PRABHU: Right. I went through that phase of ‘Why me?’ It took me a while to get to ‘There’s something to learn from this’.
WHAT’S NEXT
THR INDIA: And now you’re going to be a mom. What’s it like right now?
PRABHU: I’d reached a place where I was okay either way — maybe we won’t have kids, maybe we will. Both Raj and I were fine with either. So, this is a surprise. I was shooting the song “Thassadiya” when I found out. I had a little sickness while doing the steps. I guess everything just aligned. I’m truly excited, and everyone tells me having a child changes your entire life. I think I’m ready for that change.
THR INDIA: In March, you were our keynote speaker at THR India’s Women in Entertainment event. You said your first instinct was to say no — which is why you said yes. You said we all make ourselves smaller. Are you done with that now?
PRABHU: Yeah, definitely done with that. It serves no purpose, it helps no one. Some people need to learn the hard way, and I believe I finally have. It feels freeing to not be smaller, to stop giving people excuses for my success or performance or living half my life giving away credit or being embarrassed about my achievements.
THR INDIA: And deflecting compliments.
PRABHU: Deflecting compliments, yeah. That doesn’t help anyone.
THR INDIA: You said, ‘I dream of a day when the woman’s name above the title is so insignificant that no one talks about it. I dream of a day when stories are not called female-led as though they were at risk, a category, a qualification, or worse, an apology. I dream of a day when women on screen are as contradictory, complicated, and real as the women watching them, not just someone’s wife or the reason the hero finds his courage — just themselves, fully. I dream of a day when a woman negotiating her contract is the most boring headline of the week, and I dream of a day when safety on set, in every form, is not something that’s hushed up, but what this industry builds as its foundation’. We’re all far from this day. What gives you hope?
PRABHU: Let me say that Tralala (her production company) lives by these principles. I’m happy that they’re not just words. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself, and it’s very important for me to not just say these words but also live by them. Tralala as a production house will always look at female representation across all of its films. That’s our focus — to encourage new talent, to give everyone a voice, to help voices be heard — and this is not a one-off, we’ve produced two films and have many more coming. Both our films have had very strong female characters, and all our future films will too.
What happens is, when women around see one woman do it, it gives them a little more strength to do so themselves. I think the biggest lie women are told is that we have to wait to be chosen, not choose — we’ve been taught to wait for the right job, the right relationship, the promotion. But it’s time women understand we can choose the life we want, what we want to stand for, what we want to walk away from. It just needs one woman to take one step forward, and the rest will follow. So, when I say these words, I intend to live by them, and I can say that I do.
THR INDIA: What are the plans for yourself? Are you listening
to scripts?
PRABHU: Hopefully, not a very long break — but no pressure, I’m going to listen to my body. There are films we’re producing, businesses doing really well that need my time. So, my hands are still full.
THR INDIA: And they’ll only become fuller.
PRABHU: Apparently!
THR INDIA: Out of syllabus, but we have to ask about your ring. It’s so beautiful.
PRABHU:One of our friends, a jewellery designer in Greece — Raj spoke to him, and I had no idea. I had no part in selecting this ring, none whatsoever. You’ll have to ask him. He has great taste. But I think it was a one-off.