Reader TTS

It's been 22 years since Sonia Agarwal made her acting debut in Selvaraghavan's _KADHAL KONDEN_. All these years later, Sonia lives by her three-point formula — work in roles she

believes in, draw boundaries when needed, and strive to achieve success in all her roles. She is among the handful of female stars in a male-dominated industry to continue to feature

prominently in film posters. Discussing her longevity, Sonia says, “The constant love from the audiences made me reach this position. It feels good, and I am blessed to consistently receive

good scripts. Honestly, I never wanted to do a ‘normal’ character from day one of my career. I have always played a strong female lead, even if there was an equally big hero basking under

the limelight. Be it Divya, Anitha or Angel, my roles are always layered and deep.” In fact, Sonia shares that this pursuit of such roles started right from her critically acclaimed debut

performance in _KADHAL KONDEN_. “Once you have established yourself as an actor who plays meaningful characters, you can’t go back to working on ‘normal’ roles. I had to become a conscious

actor,” she explains. The culmination of it all has landed on _WILL_, her upcoming film, where she sits on the elevated judge’s seat for the first time in her career. “I was nervous to wear

the coat,” shares Sonia, crediting director Sivaraman, a lawyer himself, for getting the nuances of a courtroom setting right and extracting the exact performances needed for the film.

“Sometimes, there is a chance of directors missing a few details in films like these. However, _WILL_ is carefully constructed since the director has experienced living in such a setting.

Crafting roles like lawyers and doctors requires meticulousness as they are strong personalities. While wearing their uniforms, we need to respect these roles,” she notes, adding how her

brother and composer Saurabh Agarwal had developed tunes aligned to these themes. Early on in her career, Sonia Agarwal had benefited from being part of several films that have gone on to

become cult classics in Tamil cinema—_KAADHAL KONDEIN_, _7G RAINBOW COLONY_, _THIRUTTU PAYALE_ and _PUDHUPETTAI_. Recalling memories from these films, she points to how _PUDHUPETTAI_,

starring Dhanush and herself, changed how people looked at films. “It greatly influenced how the audience looked at films. It taught people in the industry to utilise their resources to make

wonderful films. If we could do this film without the technological advancements that we have now, imagine the potential that we hold in our hands now,” she reflects, adding, “Similar to 

_PUDHUPETTAI_, I continue to always look for roles where women are strong. She can be naïve, but there needs to be an unshakeable inner strength in her.”