

It was her way of giving back to the society, she said, and to this day, she has continued supporting and raising funds for the NGO. Her illness also changed her as a person, and soon after her comeback, she got involved in a lot of charity work through her NGO, Pratyusha Support to provide medical support for children and women from underprivileged background. Long before she clarified what had happened to her health, her acting career hit a roadblock abruptly, and it took her a long time to get back to work.
#YE MAYA CHESAVE VIDEO CLIPS SERIES#
The same year, she impressed yet again in Gautham Menon’s Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu, although the film met with a lukewarm reception at the box-office.Ģ012 was also a tough year for the actress, who had to opt out of Mani Ratnam’s Kadal, following, what she said, was ‘a series of repetitive infections caused due to her low immune system’. It was an unusual film where the protagonist is a house fly, but that’s the film which helped me grow immensely as an actor,” she said. “I chose the film over a few other big budget commercial films that were offered to me at the same time. The biggest turning point in her career, post Dookudu, was choosing Rajamouli’s 2012 fantasy drama, Eega, a statement which she has repeated several times over the years. Soon, her first film with Mahesh Babu, Dookudu, turned out to be a blockbuster and she became one of the most sought after actresses in the Telugu film industry after that. The hangover of Jessie was still fresh in people’s minds, and the actress left many wondering why she had chosen a commercial film like Brindavanam after Ye Maaya Chesave. Post her debut in Ye Maaya Chesave, the actress took everyone by surprise in a glamorous avatar in Vamshi Paidipally’s Brindavanam, which also had NTR Jr and Kajal Aggarwal in lead roles. It took me years to come out of that mindset and come to terms with the unconditional love which people have for me.” Yes, there are a lot of actors who celebrate success, but I found myself wondering if I am truly worth it. She says, “For the longest time, I didn’t understand the adulation and I didn’t want to believe that it was all happening for real. Yet, it’s her tryst with stardom and how she has dealt with it that’s more revealing about her internal struggle. It took me a while to convince myself to build upon what people already like about me and after that, things got a lot better,” the actress told this writer. “In the midst of my career, I made some wrong choices thinking that I need to shed my cute-girl image, and that backfired a lot. Her stardom, over the years, has been the result of her perseverance and making peace with herself. And it wasn’t just the flops in the initial years, the actress has had to muster all her strength to bounce back after her health issue almost derailed her career. In subsequent years, after her debut in Telugu cinema, the actress went on to work with several top directors and actors including SS Rajamouli, Trivikram Srinivas, Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan, NTR, Ram Charan, and Allu Arjun to name a few, but her journey has been anything but easy. Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Akkineni in Ye Maaya Chesave.

“I couldn’t speak a word in Telugu when I signed the film and I was too busy memorising my lines to even remember what I was doing in front of the camera,” Samantha once said in an interview. The newcomer, who grew up in Pallavaram, became a heartthrob for Telugu moviegoers, but here’s a word of caution - Samantha will punch you if you tell her that her best performance was in Ye Maaya Chesave. In hindsight, it now feels like a scene straight out of a fairytale, whose appeal transcends the screen. It’s the kind of moment which refuses to leave your memory even after a decade - Samantha dressed in a blue sari, the slow motion walk, AR Rahman’s background score, and the way Naga Chaitanya looks at her as if he’s spellbound when she tells him that she lives in the house upstairs.everything that makes you want to believe in the magic of love. The same was true for millions of people who saw the film back in 2010. In Gautham Menon’s Ye Maaya Chesave, it’s love at first sight for Karthik (Naga Chaitanya) the moment he sees Jessie (Samantha) walking on the street.
