The jungle is home
Nimisha Sajayan on her role in Poacher, and on exploring new characters in Tamil cinema
“Who will say no to Mala Jogi?” Nimisha Sajayan laughs as she asks the rhetorical question. Nimisha says director Richie Mehta is someone she has always wanted to work with. So, when he approached her to play the lead of Mala in the eightpart crime thriller Poacher, she did not have to think twice to say yes.
Her role as the tough, nononsense Mala, a Kerala Forest range officer, in Poacher is winning accolades.
The series is based on a reallife incident in the nineties when officers of the Forest Service busted an international ivory smuggling racket that targeted elephants in the Western Ghats.
“Mala is an amalgamation of three officers in the Indian Forest Service. I talked to one of them for more than an hour to understand how he interacts with his colleagues and his family,” says Nimisha, speaking on the phone from Mumbai.
“There was one question I asked him that helped me get under the skin of Mala. I asked him ‘Chetta, how do you react when you hear of such cases (of poaching)? Then he asked me ‘Nimisha, how would you react if something close to your heart is taken from you?’ I told him that I would be heartbroken. He told me that is how he feels when he hears about such cases. He told me ‘The jungle is my home’. That one sentence helped me understand him and how emotionally connected he is to the jungle.”
Nimisha has had a happening year in
2023 with the actor making her debut in Tamil and Hindi films and topping it with the multilingual Poacher, streaming on Prime Video.
Last seen in Malayalam in Dr. Biju’s Adrishyajalakangal, Nimisha has been busy making a mark in Tamil cinema.
SU Arun Kumar’s Siddarthstarrer Chithha,was followed by Karthik
Subbaraj’s Jigarthanda Double
X.On her long absence from Malayalam cinema, she says, “That is because I am exploring different characters.
The characters I am getting in Tamil cinema and Mumbai are very different from what I have done so far.”
After the threefilm anthology Lantrani on Zee 5, next up for Nimisha is Dhaba Cartel, a Netflix web series, starring Nimisha with Shabana Azmi and others. Although tightlipped about her character, she talks about her fan girl moment while acting with Shabana Azmi. “I got goosebumps. It was like a dream come true working with her. ”
Nimisha has much to look forward to in 2024.
“There is a Tamil project, one Bengali film and one British Indian project, Footprints on Water.”
The characters I am getting in Tamil cinema ...are very different from what I have done so far NIMISHA SAJAYAN
Actor