Navya Nair and Prithviraj Sukumaran are two stars who captured the hearts of Malayali audiences as Balamani and Manu in the film Nandanam. The movie was notable for being Prithviraj’s debut as a lead actor, and Navya’s performance received widespread acclaim. To this day, she is often remembered for this character.
The hit pairing of Nandanam reunited in several films afterward, but they also had to face controversies along the way. Recently, Navya’s comments about the criticism involving Prithviraj have gone viral. The topic resurfaced when a video of an old interview with Navya began circulating online.
“There was controversy surrounding the statement that Prithviraj and I acted in an ‘intensely hot’ manner. Back then, I didn’t have the courage to talk about it the way I would today. Honestly, I never imagined it would be taken that way. Even now, I don’t see anything inappropriate about it, but I can’t understand why it was perceived that way. Perhaps audiences at the time couldn’t fully accept it after Nandanam. Rumors spread that it was a ‘hot scene’ and that we acted very intimately.
During that time, I was going through a personal tragedy. My aunt’s husband had passed away just 11 months after their wedding, and she was 9 months pregnant. We had to complete the film quickly, so I couldn’t take a break. I remember crying after every scene we shot. It was during that emotional period that these scenes were filmed.
What audiences see on-screen is never the same as what happens during filming. A scene like that is created by piecing together many small shots. But I didn’t anticipate that it would evoke such strong reactions. As an actress, I only performed my role. However, viewers perceived me as a daughter or sister figure, so they couldn’t accept it. That made me very sad.
During that time, I gave an interview to a magazine, but they heavily altered what I said. To this day, I don’t know why they did that. When they interviewed me, they asked serious questions, but what they published was completely different. Others have done this too.”
Navya Nair was referring to her experience filming the movie Vellithira, directed by Bhadran. Following the success of Nandanam, Navya and Prithviraj acted as leads in Vellithira. A romantic song sequence in the film featured them performing closely together, which led to criticism at the time.
