Gowri Nandha – South Indian film actress of ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ fame

Gowri Nandha is a south Indian film actress, who works in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil movies. She marked her debut with 2010 Malayalam film, Kanyakumari Express as the female lead opposite Suresh Gopi. In the next one decade she worked in more than a half dozen movies belonging to three different south Indian languages. After struggling in film industry for a long time she came to limelight in 2020 with Prithviraj starrer Ayyappanum Koshiyum, where she played the lead role of a tribal woman, Kannamma. Earlier she has shared screen space with Mohanlal for two movies in a supporting role – Loham and Kanal.

Gowri Nandha was born in Ernakulam in 1989 in Ernakulam, Kerala. She marked her screen debut in a lead role with Kanyakumari Express in 2010. After her debut film, she was already determined to do more films. Her second release was Nimirndhu Nil in 2014 in a supporting role. The movie marked her debut in Tamil films in a supporting role. Following year she marked her Telugu debut with Janda Pai Kapiraju, that too in a supporting role. After doing character roles in a couple of Mohanlal movies, she bagged her first lead role in Tamil through Pagadi Aattam in 2017. The movie went unnoticed.

She took a break from films and retired after 3 years of hiatus in 2020. She played Biju Menon’s wife in Ayyappanum Koshiyum, and got the much awaited break she has been longing for. With her impressive performance as Kannamma she received rave reviews from critics and audience. Her face off with Prithviraj in one of the scenes is memorable. Her role as a powerful woman with dark complexion was enough to break all stereotypes of Malayalam cinema, where female lead characters are judged by skin colour.

Gowri Nandha – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. She took boxing classes as a part of her preparations for her action role in Loham.

2. To fit into the role of a tribal lady in Ayyappanum Koshiyum, she was asked to reduce weight as much as possible, which she did. She also brought perfectness into the role through body language, walk, dialogue delivery and sari style.

3. She worked with Rahman in Tamil movie, Pagadi Aattam. Sachy spotted her after watching this film, and offered her the lead role in Ayyappanum Koshiyum, which became a turning point of her professional life.

4. After marking her screen debut opposite Suresh Gopi, she waited for good roles to come in. For the same reason she could do less than 10 films in the past 10-11 years.

5. She feels that like her character Kannamma in Ayyappanum Koshiyum, she is a bold person in real life too.

6. She watched the first show of Ayyappanum Koshiyum by sitting on floor, as tickets were not available for the entire crew.