Suggested Topics :
Regina Cassandra on Playing the Year’s Most Formidable Villainess: If My Character in 'Vidaamuyarchi' Was an Animal…
The actor opens up about her near-exit from the film industry, rediscovering her love for acting, and delivering one of her most complex performances in 'Vidaamuyarchi'
“There was a phase in 2016 when I was done with the industry,” recalls Regina Cassandra, as she tries to piece together the sequence of decisions that led her to the role of Deepika in Vidaamuyarchi (2025). “It was the lowest point in my career, and I didn’t want to work anymore. I had given up.”
She had all but hung up her boots when a Telugu filmmaker approached her with a role that was written specifically for her. “I had been saying no to so many offers but when Srinivas Avasarala, director of Jyo Achyutananda (2016) narrated the script to me, I wondered why I was being so hesitant to turn him down.”
Read more |'Vidaamuyarchi' Movie Review: A Solid Marriage Story Stuck In A Middling Action Flick
It was the story of two brothers who fall in love with Regina’s character, who was the house owner’s daughter. It was a simple family drama, but the earnestness with which the director narrated it to her got Regina to reconsider her decision.
“I had made up my mind to quit, but when Srinivas came to me, it got me thinking about what I would be missing out on. I got into acting so naturally that there were no struggles. Maybe I needed this wake-up call to realise this was more than a career; I had actually fallen in love with acting at some point.”
Read more | 'Suzhal' Season 2 Series Review: A Stillborn Follow-Up to a Promising First Season
This awakening came with its set of learnings for Regina; she realised that she had been trying to fit into a personality type just to navigate the nature of the business. “I’m not interested in the politics of this business. Also, I’m fundamentally not the lobbying kind. I understand networking is a big part of this job and that I would miss out on work because I’m not good at it. But I’ve also accepted that I’m not that person and made my peace with it.”
This has made her more secure, forcing her to focus on the aspects of the job she’d secretly been in love with for this long. “That phase was so terrible that even the little victories that followed gave me a major high. It made me grateful, and I’ve evolved so much since. But more than anything, I learnt what suffering can be, and to accept it as a part of life. That suffering has given me the depth to handle everything. I know my characters better because I understand myself better now.”
Her performances in the hit series Rocket Boys (2022) and the romance Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), were a result of the learnings from this phase. “In Rocket Boys, my character must remain constrained even through the storm of emotions she’s going through. She is dealing with a lot, but cannot express any of it.”
This internalisation of complex emotions was also what worked in her performance as Deepika in [director] Magizh Thirumeni’s Vidaamuyarchi. The brief for this character was to “not play it like she’s a psychopath.” Instead, she had to play Deepika like she was a girl next door, “warm and friendly.”
It was her character that made the film starkly different from its original Breakdown (1997). “It’s because Deepika seems so nice that we’re convinced Kayal (Trisha) is safe, even though she gets into a truck with strangers. For this to work, Kayal’s first meeting with Deepika needed to be convincing. She needed to be friendly but there were also these layers. There were so many approaches in the way I needed to “act nice” that even the way I say “Thoothukudi!” excitedly had to go through several variations.”
The complexity of her character was two-fold. She had to exhibit signs of being a brutal narcissist, but without any of the crutches usually afforded to loud villains in mainstream cinema. There was no throaty laughter or a booming voice. “My approach was to play it like it none of this was important for Deepika. She had done all of this before. If Deepika was an animal, she’d perhaps be a cat. So, when she kills a rat, it was not to eat it... she’d rather play it with. Deepika has no concept of remorse.”
This is the sort of understanding that was needed for Regina to ace this character; even though Deepika only got a little over five scenes in the entire film, you could still see an entire arc. “We knew we had cracked a solid interval bang as we were shooting it. But for me, the excitement was to see how my scene with Kayal (Trisha) had turned out in the second half, the one in which I speak emotionally about my sister. It is such a tricky scene because you know that Deepika is just spinning a yarn and making it all up. But we also needed to convey that Deepika herself seemed convinced at the lie she was saying.”
Read more | The Star Kid Starter Pack: How Nepo-Babies are Launched in Bollywood Today
Her commitment to the character is obvious, and not just in the way she was able to pull it off convincingly. Not once does she refer to any of the characters in the film by mentioning the actors who played them, even a year after shooting for Vidaamuyarchi. For Regina, these characters are as good as real.
“Even when Magizh sir narrated the script, I was so excited that Ajith sir was experimenting with such a subject. Knowing how much flak you can get for doing something so new, that too with the topic like cheating on one's partner, you know it can easily become a blame game. Of course that is the nature of the business, but I’m so glad we can still look at it as an art form too," Regina says.
Admitting how she feels elated with all the praise, she feels that this phase too will come with its own set of challenges. “I fully expect people to call me specifically to do villain roles now.”
But for now, she hopes that every performance of hers does not come with the "comeback" tag she no longer wants to hear. “I admit I’ve not been doing a lot of Tamil films, and I will change that. But I wonder why everyone’s so happy to call it a comeback whenever I work in their respective industry. Where did I go for them to think this way?”