July 31: Preity Mukhundhan, the actress who has built a diverse body of work across four languages, recently received the IMDb "Breakout Star" STARmeter Award. The award recognizes strong performers on the Popular Indian Celebrities list published on the IMDb app. The list charts the page views of the more than 250 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide, and has proven to be a keenly accurate predictor of stars who are about to have a breakthrough career moment.
In an exclusive interaction withIMDb, Mukhundhan opened up about the journey that led her into acting, the demands of embodying difficult emotions on screen, and the sweetest reactions she's received from audiences along the way.
Speaking about how her journey in front of the camera began, Mukhundhan revealed that it was her parents who first pushed her to audition, despite her own hesitation.
"I was 18 years old, and my parents were actually the ones who pushed me to audition because I didn't believe in myself. I felt like, 'No, I can't audition. I'm going to embarrass myself,'" she recalled. "I remember they drove down to my college hostel and sat me down. They asked, 'Why don't you want to try? It's okay. This is just a start.’ That really struck a chord with me, and that's when it all started."
Mukhundhan also spoke candidly about the emotional toll of her craft, pointing to a particularly intense scene from her upcoming Tamil film. "There's a moment where I portray a woman's rage after she feels violated. Getting into that character's skin was exhilarating in a very painful way," she shared. "I remember after the scene, my head was hurting. Everyone was clapping, but I felt completely drained, and my head was exploding. That experience made me understand how deeply you have to dive into a character to truly capture the essence of what you're trying to portray."
On the project that changed the trajectory of her career, Mukhundhan credited the music video Aasa Kooda for putting her on the map. "I felt really grateful because my career kind of took a turn after that. At least people knew I existed, and that felt like a big deal," she said. "Nobody in the industry really knew me before that, so it gave me a great platform, especially on social media. The amount of reach was mind-blowing. You have direct access to the audience, and my following also increased"
Discussing her action-heavy Tamil film Blast, Mukhundhan recalled the moment the team knew they had something special on their hands.
"We knew they had to be convincing and done well because Tamil cinema hadn't really seen, in a while now, women doing action actually," she said of the film's action sequences. "While filming, all of us were sweating, giving it everything we had, doing retake after retake, making sure all the details were right. I remember all of us feeling, 'Wow, we're making something really good. People are going to love this.'"
Looking ahead, Mukhundhan has three releases lined up this year, including a Telugu film she describes as "turning out to be a really beautiful film," along with an as-yet-unannounced project she calls "a really big deal."
