Paridhi is shooting daggers at us because we’ve overshot our rest limit and are supposed to be two reps into our next set. Samantha and I, both dyed-in-the-wool millennials, tell her she is too Gen Z to talk or hear about love without feeling embarrassed. She has one word for us both. “Lunges,” she growls. “Leave the 5, pick up the 7.5,” she adds, looking at me stoically and I detect the slightest note of vengeance in her sweet voice. I look to Samantha for help but she, ever the dutiful student, has already started without me.
And so it is that we become like two ships passing in the night—me, an inflatable raft in a hurricane, losing my balance with every step I take; Samantha, a sturdy ocean liner already on her way back to the starting point, ready for her next rep. When our paths cross, she sends words of encouragement my way. “You have great flexibility. I struggled with that.”
When I collapse on the mat two minutes later, she sits next to me quietly, a silence that neither of us feels compelled to break. Instead, her triceps seem to be doing the talking for her, catching the golden hour at different angles as she breathes in and out. She catches me looking—again—and explains, “I do my own stunts in all my films so I have to be strong. It needs to look believable.” I realise, belatedly, that she has mistaken my appreciation for aversion. Her apprehensions aren’t unfounded. When cricketer Smriti Mandhana wore a halter-neck gown to an event in Bengaluru in December last year, her deltoids were deemed ‘too manly’ by men who incidentally looked like they wouldn’t last five seconds in an arm-wrestling match with a kitten. “When I shoot with brands and often in films, too, they try to cover my arms because they think muscles on a woman aren’t attractive,” Samantha confesses. “Which is why,” she continues, beaming now, “it was so cool that Vogue gave me weights during the shoot and asked me to pump before each shot so my triceps would look well-defined. That’s usually only done for men.”
Her upcoming Telugu film Maa Inti Bangaaram makes full use of all the hours she’s been putting in at the gym. In the trailer, Samantha plays the docile daughter-in-law with a secret: she can beat up any man who asks for it. She kicks one off a moving bus, stabs another in the eye with furniture and drags another through a home courtyard—all while wearing a sari. “I haven’t fought in a sari before, so that was definitely challenging,” the actor laughs. “Also, because I’ve produced this film myself under Tralala Moving Pictures, the budget had to be kept super tight. We finished shooting the bus fight scene in five hours, where it usually takes around two days. It was quite stressful.” Producing and acting in Maa Inti Bangaaram aren’t the only things on her plate either: less than two months after launching her fashion label Truly Sma, she launched her activewear brand Mile Collective; her clean-perfume brand Secret Alchemist raised $3 million in a seed-funding round by Unilever Ventures; and, as the co-owner of Chennai Super Champs, she is racquet-deep in prep ahead of season two of the World Pickleball League. Still, it’s clear where her heart’s compass points. “I’ve not had a film release in over two and a half years because of the break I took for my health. Yes, I’ve invested in many businesses and enjoy the entrepreneurial side of things, but acting is my first love so it feels great to be in front of the camera again.” And does a certain Raj Nidimoru’s presence on set as the creator of Maa Inti Bangaaram have anything to do with it? “Raj and I really are that irritating couple that does everything together,” Samantha laughs. “We work together, we play together, we work out together with Paridhi. And we love it. If I have to travel for even a day, I’m like… [pretends to swoon in distress.] I don’t think it’s a honeymoon phase. Too much time has passed for it to be that.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: vogue.in
