Actress with strong thespian traditions
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Question: You were honoured with the award for the Best Supporting Actress at the last Sarasaviya Film Festival. How do you feel about this recognition at national level?
Answer: Any award brings in stability to one's career and future performance. It is like a flower that blossoms on one's head. I was first recognized with the critic's award for my performance in Veesi Dela and the Sarasaviya award for the best supporting actress is the next award I had won.
We never perform with an award in mind. It is the national recognition of our performance which earns us an award. That makes us extremely happy which makes us proud of our own achievement.
Q: How do you see the mother's character in the film Gini Kirilli?
A: The character here is that of an uneducated rustic woman. She knows that some injustice had been done to her daughter. Yet, she is ignorant of how to fight against it; but, she knows its social and moral impact on a person. So her main worry was whether her only daughter would become pregnant and how to meet with such an eventuality.
My normal plan is to first enter into the character through the reading of the script. This initial understanding will be put to test on the set. There are certain characters which require a special study. Such characters demand the reading of the entire script and realize it in the spirit of the cross-relations with the other interacting characters in the film.
Q: How do you describe the role of a supporting actor or an actress in a film?
A: The role of a supporting actor or actress is more difficult to perform than that of a lead artiste. There are several supporting actors in a film which makes it more competitive. Their performance should fit into the rhythm of the movie. Supporting roles are essential for the progression of the movie.
Transition
Q: You are an actress who came to cinema from the stage. How do you explain your experience in your transition from one form to the other?
A: It wasn't any challenge for me. The experience I gained on stage helped me to give my professionalism to cinema with the discipline and learning I acquired from the stage. It made things much easier for me. Therefore, there wasn't the slightest challenge except it was a novel experience.
Q: You are an artiste who has excelled in cinema, theatre and television. How do you describe the differences in the art of acting, if any, in these different fields of art?
A: There is a difference because of the commercial element involved in each of them. Otherwise the only difference is in the use of technology.
Performance in all these three forms is one of a rectangular frame. It is acting wherever it is, except that the performance on the stage is before a live audience.
So, with the audience response being spontaneously felt, the performance on the stage could change for better or worse instantly. Also, rehearsals for stage plays could be used as a platform to gage what the audience reaction to a particular play could be.
All artistes who have come to cinema from the stage insist on rehearsals before moving on to 'takes'. Even for the cinema rehearsals are a necessity which the artistes should realize. On stage, at the start I had performed for Rs. 5 per show. Then that wasn't a problem at all. We were never paid for rehearsals, but we attended them regularly and on time.
The satisfaction we get from acting on stage is never there when we act in films. A certain degree of over-acting is necessary for the stage. The television has a tendency to underexpose the screen personality of the artiste. For a true actor television poses several problems to reverse his performance.
Experience
Q: Most of the artistes do not have any experience in acting in radio plays. You have that additional experience. How did you find it useful in your career in cinema and theatre?
A: It had a direct influence on modulation when I was to deliver diologues. While acting in radio plays, I learned how to control my voice. That helped my performance in cinema too.
Q: Will you perform in any role offered to you or do you have any special liking for certain kind of characters?
A: I like whatever character I think is suitable for me. I will perform any role which is not against our cultural norms which I cherish most.
Q: Don't you contemplate on re-entering the stage, if not why?
A: I will never lose my interest in theatre and stage. The question is to find the time to take part in rehearsals. However, I want to produce a stage play and the stage is our life-blood.
Q: We don't see you in commercial films. Is it because you reject performance in such films?
A: No. In the first instance, even to reject I must get the offers. I do not know whether they seem to think that I do not act in such films. However, I have no such discrimination on my part.
Q: Your performance in Weesi Dela (Fishing Net) is memorable. Did you study this character beforehand with any special attention?
A: No. As usual I studied the character from the script itself. When I read it I could visualise the character evolving before me. As W. Jayasiri was to act opposite me, it made things easier.
Since both of us were stage artistes earlier, we have been used to discuss about the respective characters at rehearsals. To understand the character, we used to discuss it with the director suggesting our own views.
Directors
Q: Can you describe the role of the director in handling the artistes in a movie?
A: In our country there are just a few talented directors. Most of them have no proper understanding of making a film. They are mostly self-made and they have no practical experience or theoretical understanding. If we had good directors our cinema would have been much more advanced today. If cinema is to be a director's art, the director should be in a much higher plan of knowledge and talent.
Q: Do you see any change for better or worse in the art of movie acting between the years you joined cinema and today?
A: Yes, I see a difference. We joined the cinema we had no experience. Today's youth are much more fortunate than we were. Globalization and the availability of modern technology such as the video, CD, DVD, TV and the Internet, it had made their task of learning easier.
The opportunities they have today to study their subject is vast; we did not have even a fraction of it. The question is whether, with all these facilities within their easy reach, they are making the full use of them. We had only photographs or pictures to look and learn. With all these drawbacks I won my first-ever award for my performance, in Henry Jayasena's Ahas Maliga. That was in 1966.
Q: What advice can you give to those youngsters who enter the cinema?
A: It is much better if we could refrain from giving them advice. They can learn everything from the environment and the surrounding resources. If someone asks me personally for advice, I am quite willing to help him. The youth today are very much ahead of us because of the avenues for learning are wide and numerous, and are within easy reach of all.
Q: What is our opinion about the future of Sinhala cinema and theatre?
A: I see no future for both cinema and theatre. First, this ethnic problem should be solved. Then only we can move on to art. Instability in the country is not conducive for art to thrive. Things will move as they are today. This sad situation started in the early seventies, and is continuing taking different forms and aims. So our performing arts continue to be doomed.
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