Life on stage and screen

Kaushalya Fernando on Celeb Chat:

Join popular stage and screen actress Kaushalya Fernando, on CSN's Celeb Chat at 9.30 pm on Monday May 23 as she talks about the many roles she's played in life and continues to do so.

Kaushalya landed her first-ever stage role by accident as a 'last minute replacement' in Punchi Apata Dang Therei directed by her mother in 1979. Interestingly Sri Lankan film goers are yet to see her first screen performance, in Ashoka Handagama's Sanda Dadayama (1996), which is still to hit the screen.

She has since then played memorable roles in May mage Sandai (2000), Boradiya Pokuna (2002), Sulanga Enu Pinisa (Camera d'or at Cannes 2005), Ahasin Wetei (in competition at Venice 2009), Ira Handa Yata (2009), Aakasa Kusum (2008), Flying Fish (2010) (in competition for Tiger Award at Rotterdam Film festival (2011), Mouse (2011) and Three Wheel Diaries (2011).

Daughter of well-known civil servant and former ambassador Lionel Fernando and Somalatha Subasinghe, Kaushalya was a very promising schoolgirl athlete who had to abandon the track after a leg injury. Sri Lanka's stage and screen are richer by this incident.

Wife of Dr. Chandana Aluthge and mother to twins, Haimi and Hans, Kaushalya is a very modest woman, yet passionate about whatever she does.

Listen to her talk about the pros and cons of acting as a profession in this country, her work with the 'Playhouse for Children and Youth' founded by her mother in 1981. This organization was later incorporated in the Parliament of Sri Lanka as 'Lanka Children's and Youth Theatre Foundation, Act No 3 of 2007.

She's also worked with Sri Lanka's new generation film directors such as Vimukthi Jayasundera, Satyajith Maitipe, Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, Dennis Perera, Wasantha Moragoda and others. Kaushalya is possibly one of the very few Sri Lankan actresses whos walked the red carpet at the Mecca of world cinema - the Cannes Film Festival 2005 - a few years ago in Venice in 2009.

Being the daughter of Somalatha Subasinghe is a challenge. Being such a daughter who is also an actress is an even greater challenge. Being an actress/daughter playing the identical role, Bernarda Alba in Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, once played by her mother in 1992, is stretching the word 'challenge' to its limits.