Chinmayi's journey into Tollywood - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: Neuroscience and Psychology graduate, Miss India Te'xas 2009, Miss Asia Texas 2010, an award-winning short filmmaker ' that was Chinmayi Ghatrazu in a nutshell, before she became a Tollywood actress that is; the things people do to become an actress are quite incredible. Jokes apart, looking back, it was a part-time job that changed the course of her life.

'I was going to become a psychiatrist or take up neuroscience as a career. But then I took up a part-time job as a sound production assistant in a radio station in Dallas.

That's when I realised my interest lay in the creative side of things and decided to take up an associate degree in film and video technology,' explains Chinmayi.

She even directed a short film called American Night'mare. 'It is a comedy about the American dream gone wrong. It's about an immigrant who comes to the US to live the American dream and ends up getting stuck in a marketing scam because of his lack of knowledge about the American ways,' she shares.

It won the best short film award in the viewer's choice category at the Dallas film festival in 2010.

That's when she got the opportunity to act in director Praveen Sattaru's cross cultural romantic comedy LBW. 'Praveen happened to be a friend of a common friend. I auditioned for the role and loved the character Radhika in the film and got on board,' she says talking about her accidental foray into acting.

However, she did not know then that she would be moving bag and baggage to Hyderabad. 'The plan was to finish the film and get back home but the movie release kept getting postponed and so did my trip back home' she explains.

Born in Hyderabad, Chinmayi migrated to Dallas, USA along with her family when she was a kid and stayed there ever since. But as it turned out, she's been in Hyderabad for little over a year now.

'Fortunately I have met a lot of young people, aspiring filmmakers and scriptwriters who are on the same wave length and want to introduce new genres of films in Telugu. So I figured this is the best way to learn about the business of filmmaking and decided to stay back,' she says.

She is currently acting in her second film touted to be a romantic entertainer opposite Adi. Apart from that, she says, 'I am in discussions about an interesting Tamil film. It is still in the pre-production stage,' she explains.

Chinmayi hopes to try her hand at directing as well. 'I want to direct a film eventually. I am learning as much as I can about the various facets of filmmaking through my acting now,' she explains.

That apart, she thinks she is more Indian than some of the others who have grown up here. 'Weekends in Dallas meant we have to go to Hindi class, Telugu class, Bharatnatyam or Kuchipudi or Hindustani classical singing. We were sent to Satsang to know about our religion, spirituality, etc. I think I know more about my culture than someone who's been here all their life,' she says.

Her stay has had her share of ups and downs so to speak off. 'The way things get done here was a huge learning experience. When anyone says anything in India, do not believe it, always contradict it.'

Getting used to the food also has been a challenge. 'I've had four attacks of food-poisoning in the last year,' she exclaims adding, 'But I am a total foodie and it doesn't deter me from trying anything be it bandi chaat or something else,' she says.