Actress Namitha, one of the most prominent faces in Tamil and Telugu cinema through the 2000s, has spoken openly about the arrogance she carried, the films she should not have done, and the industry colleagues who told her to change before it was too late.

“I was arrogant, and I had a rude nature,” Namitha said in an interview with Touring Talkies. She described carrying a sense of “thalai kannam,” a Tamil expression for the kind of conceit that comes with sudden fame. She said the attitude was particularly pronounced during her first two years in the industry, when early success and constant media attention gave her a sense of entitlement she now recognises was damaging.

“In my early days, I was a bit arrogant. When I was like that for the first two years, many people advised me, ‘If you have this attitude, you can’t survive in this industry for long.’ After that, I changed,” she said.

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Namitha acknowledged that her behaviour at the time likely caused distress to others on set, from co-stars to technicians to junior crew members who had to work around her demeanour. The advice to change, she said, came not from one person but from multiple colleagues who saw where her attitude was heading and warned her before it destroyed her career.

Who is Namitha?

Born Namitha Mukesh Vankawala on May 10, 1981, in Surat, Gujarat, she was crowned Miss Surat in 1998 at the age of 17 and went on to become the third runner-up at the 2001 Miss India pageant, where Celina Jaitley won the crown. Unable to break into Hindi cinema despite the pageant exposure, Namitha moved south after accepting an audition for a Telugu film. Her Telugu debut Sontham opened the door, and her Tamil debut opposite Vijayakanth in Engal Anna followed shortly after.

At her peak, between roughly 2004 and 2009, Namitha had cult following in Tamil Nadu. She appeared in films like Billa with Prabhas. The media attention was constant, and her presence in a film was often used as a selling point regardless of the length of her role.

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Her career declined by the early 2010s as the South Indian film industry shifted away from casting women in purely glamorous roles. She was relegated to smaller parts and guest appearances before participating in Bigg Boss Tamil Season 1 in 2017, which briefly brought her back into public conversation. She has since focused on her political career and her family.