Actress Raima Sen says she was offered a role in a Kannada movie, but didn’t take it up because it wasn’t financially viable. Actress Raima Sen has certainly made a career in offbeat cinema, so it’s little wonder that she’s called an indie heroine of sorts. “I am not interested in commercial cinema because I have always been different, right from my debut when I played the role of Sejal in ‘Godmother’. Sure, there was ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd’, ‘Mirch’ and now ‘Raakh’, but I get the kind of roles I want to do in Bengali cinema,” says Raima. Now that Bollywood is changing, with directors like Dibakar Banerjee and Bejoy Nambiar making edgy films, wouldn’t she want to lend her offbeat film experience to B-town? “Of course I would love to do experimental films. I am a director’s actor and seeing the way Bollywood has changed over the years, it would be great,” says the actor. Given that she has only two upcoming B-town films – a cameo in John Abraham’s I Me Aur Hum and Tanjua Chandra’s Raakh alongside Rajeev Khandelwal and Vir Das – it seems like the Bong bombshell has made the right move in shifting her gaze down south. Raima recently made her Mollywood debut with Veeraputhran, a biopic on the life of freedom fighter Mohammed Abdul Rahman, directed by PT Kunjumohammed. How did she bag the role? “There was a film festival in Kerala and Mohammed happened to see The Japanese Wife. He liked it and flew to Mumbai and told me that when he saw the film he could only think of me in the role,” says Raima, adding, “I was a bit sceptical initially, but he was so confident that I decided to do it. And it was a fabulous experience, I never felt like an outsider on the set.” Is she game for Tollywood and Kollywood as well? “My sister (Riya Sen) has done some films down south and she has had a good stint in these industries. If I get good projects, I will definitely take them up,” says Raima. Buzz is that the actor was approached for a Sandalwood film. Prod her about this and she says, “There were talks, but it didn’t materialize as it wasn’t financially viable. Also, my dates didn’t work out.”
