Discipline and humility are some of the most crucial things an aspiring actor needs to learn if they are to thrive in the industry. To succeed, one must never stop learning and reinventing oneself. This is the message Mohini Christina Srinivasan brings to the listeners as she joins Michael Silvers on the show. Mohini is a Tamil actress from Chennai, India who has had a lot of years of experience in the South Indian movie industry, having worked in more than 100 films and TV shows. In this interview, she shares her journey inside the grit and glamor of the acting world. Brilliant, talented, and deeply spiritual, Mohini is an inspiration to aspiring actresses out there who want to succeed in the industry.
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Art, Spirituality, And The Value Of Learning And Reinventing With Mohini Christina Srinivasan
For somebody who’s been in the industry for a long time, I always talk that I’m about maybe at 5,000 hours for doing these webinars. I’m still a child compared to many out there who have done a lot of productions, a lot of movies, a lot of TV and podcasters who’ve been on for years and years. With that being said, our guest has been in the film industry for many years. She’ll tell a little bit about her background. She’s professional, brilliant and smart. She knows what she does and she’s also a businesswoman. She’s also always learning, which is why it’s great for The Mentor Studio because you’re always learning. When she’s not in a movie or a production or running around with the kids, she’s always learning. That learning part is critical. Without any further ado, I’d like to introduce Mohini. Thank you so much for being on.
Thank you so much for inviting me, Michael. I’m so excited that I can share my Indian movie experiences as it’s commonly called Bollywood and what it was like working in movies there. I’m happy to share whatever I’ve learned so far.
It’s great to have you on. If you could tell us a little bit about your background, how many movies you’ve been in and then we’ll dissect how that all works. For those of you, I know you’ve asked, how do you even get into the industry or how does one start or how does one live within the industry? We will talk about that between this show and several shows that are coming up. If you could tell us a little bit about your background, that would be great.
I’m from South India, which is called Chennai. It’s one of the major cities. India is huge and we have 22 different states with 21 movie industries, 21 different languages and 103 dialects. I started acting when I was thirteen years old in my ninth-grade annual holiday. I was particular that I’m just going to give it a shot and see how it works out because I always believed in plan B. Especially in our industry, you need to have a plan B for everything. If there’s a traffic jam, if there is some problem in the studio, you need to always have plan B. In the beginning, I had a plan B. I thought I’d try acting and if that’s not going to work out, I’m going to become a doctor. I know some of you might ask, what is the connection between the movie industry and being a doctor? There’s no connection and that’s why I love the two.
There are three things you need to succeed in acting: discipline, discipline, and discipline. Click To TweetI love to learn. I love to read. I was an Indian classical dancer and I was trained from the age of five in something called Bharatanatyam. That involves tons of expressions. We need to learn tons of expressions and it makes you agile. It makes your body and mind agile. The thing I hear these days like some actress or actor tries doing a character and it took two months for them to get into the character and it took six months for them to get out of the character. I never wanted to do that. I wanted to be a method actress. I always wanted to remember it is acting at the end of the day. I didn’t want to lose my individuality. I didn’t want to lose the core of who I am. I always want to be happy, joking and friendly. Because I’m doing a bitter scene or because I’m doing a sad scene, I didn’t want it to just roll over right there and all those things. I always had a plan B.
By the grace of God and through hard work and wonderful learning, my first movie was released in Tamil. It’s a South Indian language. The movie industry is pretty big. We have a huge movie industry there with a good turnout. My first movie was a huge hit. As you all know, Indians are spiritual beings on the planet. They had to control the audience from worshiping me on the screen. They had to say, “Please don’t throw flowers on the screen. Don’t show the fire, which we call Agni. She is just a young girl.” They had to control the audience so much. It was a hit. I was known for my eyes. Sometimes I think I would have been known for something else like, “She speaks and delivers her dialogues well. She dances gracefully.” All those things came later, but it was my eyes. Indians have dark eyes. Either it’s brown or black most of the time. I had green eyes. That was well noticed. They started calling me the green-eyed girl. I started getting tons of movies after that. My friends always tease me because of that. The Indian population kept growing. It did not come to a halt because I wasn’t a doctor.
My second movie was in another language all together. It is called Telugu. It’s a different state altogether, a different genre of making movies. In Tamil, we believed in the middle stand like you have to be glamorous, but we also had to have a lot of acting potentials. That is a term in my industry called a one-take artist or a single-take artist. At any given day, if there are four artists in a particular frame, all four of us try to be a single-take artist. That was a must when I grew up. When I was thirteen, I started acting. Some people say I lost my childhood. I couldn’t go to the movies. I think I had a better childhood. I always believed in one thing, live life positively. When life hands you lemons, I know you all say we need to make lemonade. I would say make some more martinis too, make some more salsa. Do everything that you can do with a lemon.
I try focusing on how I can make this happen, how I can live and let live, and how I can have my cake and eat it too. That was big in my mind. There were a lot of privacy issues and everything. As I say, I laid the ground rules. I said I want to be able to go to the supermarket. I want to be able to go to the feast. I always had my friends who would protect me from the crowds and I always have my staff like my chauffeur who would double up as a security guy. My hairdresser, makeup man, and security guy, they would protect me. When I started acting in Tamil, I was introduced to this glamour personified media. If you cry, you should be beautiful. If you’re doing a scene as if you’re coming fresh out of your shower, you need to still be beautiful. If you are sleeping and you’re waking up in the morning, that is the concept of the scene, you would still need to be beautiful. I was learning all those things there and I think it helps me.
I know you’ve been in over 100 movies plus you’ve been in TV shows, but you said something interesting because it sounds like you stayed grounded. You were able to make some of those decisions. Do you think that’s from your own persona? There’s spirituality around it, but just the way you are. Do you think you got that from your parents or family? Where did that come from and what kept you that way?
All the credit goes to my parents. I am an Indian, so we had this habit of listening to our parents. Even now I call my parents and I ask them about any major decision I go through. They would give me their opinion and I take it seriously. That has helped me quite a bit. My mom always used to tell me, “You are Mohini only in front of the camera. Once the camera is switched off, you are you.” Sometimes that was hard for me to maintain. That means no special food, no special diets, no coffee or no tantrums, no acting like a spoiled brat. You do everything that others do at home and that involves my younger brother. My mom made sure that everybody treated me normally and it all came from them.
It was also my staff who worked for me. They were all from wonderful families. They would always give me an opinion an actress would want to hear. At the same time, they would tell me the pros and cons. My mom always used to tell me, “If you’re ready to take the compliments, you also need to take all the other minor stuff, all the negative stuff. Compliments only wouldn’t work. Compliments would not shape you to be a better actress.” I had one actress walk up to me, a senior actress, and told me, “Mohini, you need to be beautiful even when you’re crying. The audience is not paying you money and buying the tickets to see an ugly face when you cry. Go and stand in front of the mirror and practice to look beautiful when you cry. Watch all the creases in your face. See what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. Try to maintain that.” It was all learning. This came from my parents.
The groundedness came from my producers, directors and all the actresses who I worked with. I started fairly young. While all the other girls were learning how to put their lipstick, I had to learn everything, do my hair, maintain my costumes, look beautiful when I cry and all of those things. Everybody helped me with this. It was a wonderful and amazing experience to be an actress. I’m surprised when people tell me, “We’re stressed out. We’ve been depressed. We got into this character and the negativity of the character is affecting us. We had to go to a psychiatrist.” I’m surprised because everything has a boundary and everything that’s well within that particular boundary. Lay your boundary and lay your rules much ahead of you starting to work, it’s important too.
If you don’t love your profession, it wouldn’t love you back. Click To TweetThat’s a great point because that goes across business and acting and being a parent. There are boundaries the whole way through. That’s an interesting concept that you have that good grounding. You also sound like you’ve got a lot of mentors along the way. You mentioned producers and people you worked with that were willing to mentor you. We’ll be talking more about that. When you got going and at the moment, this is what we always say. These are the greatest shows in the world because these will live on podcasting forever during a pandemic and people are doing what it takes to get it done. That’s what you’re doing. You’re with your family. You’re there for the time being. You’re in the lobby of a hotel.
A lot of times I do my podcasts sitting outside because it’s about being who you are. People are looking for that. Don’t even think about that. I knew you want to start podcasts, just be yourself. It’s not about the studios. Even look at E! Entertainment, which is doing a lot of this stuff from the homes. They don’t have three camera shoots. They have their iPhones looking right at them with nothing in the background. They’re in their own apartments and people are loving it. I don’t know if they’ll go back to the studios at this point from what I’m hearing because there are not the big costs the same way there used to be.
Going back to what we were talking about, if you take a look at your grounding and everything that you did from that standpoint, if somebody though was wanting to be an actress or an actor and realizing the studios and everything will open back up and it’s going to be a little different for a while, but it will be one thing like Hollywood. I’m sure Bollywood does the same thing. They’re good at getting back to normal. What would you advise somebody starting? What are some advice you could give to somebody who’s like, “I want to be an actor, an actress?” We know it’s not easy, but it’s not what it’s about. We also know that the American industry is different than the Indian industry. From the Indian perspective, how would I start? What should I do? What classes should I take? Can you give any advice on that?
Discipline is big time. Discipline and being humble because there have been many people who have achieved a ton of things in their lives at that particular point. They’re ahead of us. Respecting and meeting all these geniuses in our industry, being humble is important. Discipline as far as getting up on time, getting ready to the shoot on time, reaching there on time and not having any airs about you, so that director, producer or the assistant director can approach you freely. You mentioned about mentoring. It’s not that I’ve always had ten people around me who would continuously mentor me. Mentoring is your ability to pick up good things as you go, learn good things from people as you go. Make it a point and say, “I like this way of working. I like this point of view. I like this particular way of being disciplined.”
Don’t let success reach your head. Let success reach your heart for sure so that it will make you more grateful. Not only your parents who let you do what you want or your friends are there to support you or your staff was there to help you, but each and every person helped you to be a success, to be a phenomenon. I would say as an Indian, for our Indian movies, dance is important. We all have many songs and dance and all those things in the movie. It does not only help you to stay agile and helps you to be slim, but it also helps you to be graceful. This is a must because someone is watching you. They have left everything that they do behind to sit down for 1.5 to 2.5 hours in our industry to watch you.
You need to keep that particular guy or lady in your mind and make sure that their experience is useful for them, truthful for them. Choosing those kinds of movies and choosing those kinds of characters and getting into the character, remember to be able to get up to the character as well until the movie ends. Acting comes in various ways. First, you need to understand and be empathetic. When you’re empathetic, you can put yourself in another person’s shoes and that helps you to form the character in your mind. Think of how they would think, act how they would act, or dress up how they would dress up. Being empathetic is so important.
I did not do any acting training, but I’ve done a spectrum of roles from a mad man to a police inspector, to a doctor, to an FBI. Right from the walk to the way you look at the camera, your shades of your lipstick, your eyeliner, your eye shadow is important. You can’t say you’re an FBI and have your nails painted red and have a red-colored lipstick or something like that. You need to have that integrity in your mannerisms, your body, the way you dress up and everything. Training in an acting background is important.
I love what you say about being grounded because many people try to break into the industry and we know right away if it’s all about the ego or you’re just doing it because you’re trying to make a name. It’s not the love of the industry or the love of being an actor.
Art does not need a language. Click To TweetIf you don’t love your profession, if you don’t love your career, it wouldn’t love you back. If your career doesn’t love you back, your profession does not love you back. I don’t infer that as being successful. If you don’t give your 100% to your work, then it’s never going to happen. That means again, getting back to discipline, not partying until midnight and waking up late or waking up with a puffed face, waking up with red eyes, and then letting your staff worry about the rest of the things. “The actor’s eyes are red and I need to get some ice packs,” and all those things. Why do you do all these things? You know you have a shoot, you sleep early, stay fresh, rehearse your lines and get to know your coworkers, get to know your technicians, because every technician is a creator. It’s a small percentage of the creativity which is going on in the movie industry. There are other people, mainly the director or the captain of the ship as we would call him. Get to know his style of working. Get to know how you can help him in his creativity, how you will not deter it. It’s discipline.
It’s such an important part of anything that we do in our lives. That’s why this goes across boundaries. You’ve been in the industry for a long time, so you are absolutely what’s considered a mentor for that and you’re probably still doing it within your own life. We’ll talk more about that on future shows because that mentoring part is big. That discipline part, I’d be honest, especially in this country, there’s a tendency of thinking discipline but, “I want to be me and I want to do it my way,” then it becomes me. You’ve lost the concept of what discipline means. The one thing I want to get into because I know this question always comes up. These shows go worldwide, but for the audiences that don’t know Bollywood as well, why is dance so integral? You talked about being in shape and I understand that, but why is dance a big part of the movies? Can you talk a little bit more about that? When did that start?
Dance has always been an integral part of India. When I say classical dance, it’s not just that one ballet, that one salsa. In South India, we have four different versions of classical dance. In the whole of India, we have something called Bharatanatyam. It’s so important in our culture because I believe Indians are very artistic and creative. We attach a lot of spirituality to the arts. If there is a dance, it always speaks about your spirituality, whatever faith you belong to. Right from birth to someone dying, there is dance. In my culture where I grew, Tamil Nadu, I speak Tamil, people dance in front of a funeral.
Sometimes I find like if someone comes and sees this, they’re going to think we’re a bunch of crazy people. Crazy mourners that are dancing, but it’s a celebration of life. At the end of the day, it’s a celebration of life and how you want to express it depends on your culture. We express it with songs and dance. In the movie industry, every song is created for that particular purpose. In a year, I can say just in India alone, at least 200,000 new songs in one year. Everything is being choreographed in its own special way because we believe big time in celebrating every part of life.
Marriage, that’s being celebrated as well because it’s an important stage in a woman’s life. The birth of a person, death of a person, marriage anniversary, everything is so important and we believe in celebrating. This is how we express it, through songs and dance because art does not need a language. Anyone can dance, can put a song, can enjoy the music, the drums. That is why I’m speaking to a bigger audience in America. I’m from Indian industry, but art does not have any language and it’s not limited by anything.
I’d love it when we have one of the next shows to have you back and dive into that deeper. We’re also going to have Mohini to take a look at some live products that you can spend time with her because I think it’s important. There’s something between what you said between dance, but you do it for life. We need a lot of life-giving right now and we always do. That’s an important piece. That way we can also look at some of the podcasts and shows. We’ll also take a look at the business because you’re very much a businesswoman. The business in the background and move from there. Create that love of life and dance and be of service. You’re also very much of service in everything that you do. We’ll talk more about that too because if we’re not of service, then why do we do what we do? It doesn’t make sense. As an actress, you were always of service to those that were coming into the theater. You mentioned that. I think that’s a big piece. Any last words before we go?
Never stop reinventing yourself. If you don’t reinvent, we are as good as a piece of furniture or a piece of log. We have to keep reinventing ourselves. We have to continue being creative about our everyday life. I hear many people becoming depressed these days and these depressions lead into other mental conditions. If you see bipolar, dementia, Alzheimer’s, it all starts with depression. Depression is because you feel stuck in one place. Reinventing yourself and being creative, I think that is a big key for mental health and being an interesting person. Keep reinventing.
Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks to all of you for reading. We appreciate it. From me, Michael Silvers and The Mentor Studio, please go to our YouTube channel, The Mentor Studio and like us and subscribe. It’s always wonderful. Mohini, thank you so much for your time and taking your time away from your family to be with us. We look forward to more shows and this subject. It’s brilliant because there are many people that this industry becomes something they don’t understand or they want to be part of it and they have no idea how to be part of it. You’ve given them so much to start on. That’s great and to see who you are. After a hundred movies, you’re still you.
Thank you so much, Michael, and thank you so much Mentor Studio and all the people who are reading. They are part of our industry. They are part of our daily lives. Everybody who is reading, who are watching movies, who are in any way connected with the movie industry, even by going to the theaters, they keep us going. They put the smile back in our face and people who are not playing, they’ll be filming soon. Let’s keep up the hope this time.
Everybody, I wanted to thank you again from The Mentor Studio, whether it’s your morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you are, all the way to Australia and over to India, South Africa, London. I’ll talk to you all soon.
Important Links
- Mohini Srinivasan
- The Mentor Studio – YouTube
About Mohini Srinivasan
Accomplished and Popular Movie Celebrity :
Highly successful tenure of acting in over 100 + mainstream films across key Indian languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi as lead heroine and main character. Has delivered several successful box office hits with leading Hero’s and Prominent icons in the industry. Deep expertise and rich experience all streams of mainstream south Indian cinema. Versatile experience across varied roles and themes.
Some key accomplishments include :
National Award nominee for best actress , Best new face in Tamil and Malayalam Cinema, Best supporting actress critique award.
Proficient and an Exponent in Bharatanatayam – South Indian Classical Dance,
Directional experience in TV Shows , Mega Event Hosting and Popular TV show hosting
Expertise in Entertainment consulting and brand management
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