Amala Paul: My life is whatever I define it to be

“Everyone was so judgmental about that film even before they had seen it. I was being attacked just for being an actor and doing what I thought was perfectly acceptable in my job,” she says. “It was not just the audience… it was the media too. My character in Aadai was used to assassinate my character. I remember that its very release was being held up.”

Aadai charmed and confused me in equal measure

“There’s a lovely top angle shot as she finally steps out into freedom, while it is raining buckets. It feels like an ode to The Shawshank Redemption, with Andy Dufresne stepping out of his prison of decades. It’s a different sort of prison for Kamini, with her single day inside her office, feeling like Dufresne’s decades.”