Messing up the “amazing opportunity” that came to her in the form of Shamitabh was not even on the mind of Bollywood debutant Akshara Haasan, who features in the movie with popular stars Amitabh Bachchan and Dhanush.
Akshara, daughter of veteran actor Kamal Haasan, landed the role thanks to director R. Balakrishnan. ”Balki (R. Balakrishnan) sir and I met at a function. He came and said, ‘Akshara can I talk to you for five minutes’. I said ‘yes’. That time not many people knew I made the decision of becoming an actor. So, I felt that probably it’s an amazing opportunity to work with him as an assistant director.

“He went on to say, ‘There is a character which I have you on my mind for’, and I was like ‘Wait a minute, what is this…’. I was really excited.” She says working with the Paa director was an “honour more than anything else”.

“Later, we had a script discussion and I instantly connected to the script and the character. From there on, there was no looking back,” she added. On being asked about her experience of working with Amitabh and Dhanush, Akshara said: “I learnt a lot from the entire team. I connected to both Mr. Bachchan and Dhanush equally. I was nervous because I didn’t want to mess up at all, I wanted to give my 100 percent, so I was nervous. I hope I did not mess up.”

Shamitabh, which is releasing Feb 6, also stars veteran actress Rekha in a key role.