The beautiful star of ‘Akasa Kusum’ has a not so secret alter ego. Auntie Netta is Nimmi Harasgama’s funny side and she’s here to stay. Filmed on a webcam, Auntie Netta with her strange hair, strange expressions and even stranger opinions is very popular on the internet - you can find several of her short films on YouTube.
“People write to say she reminds them of someone they know or are related to, but really, truly, Auntie is another mad side to me,” says the actress. Soon, audiences will get to make their own connections when Auntie Netta invades the theatre courtesy the London-based Tamasha theatre company.
It’s clear that post her acclaimed portrayal of Priya in ‘Akasa Kusum,’ Nimmi is hard at work and will be appearing in several films and plays over the course of the year. She continues to dabble in script writing, but admits that more often than not her work ends up hidden away under the bed or at the back of the wardrobe.
These days, Nimmi is based in London. Though she moved to the city when she was four, she’s spent a lot of time in Sri Lanka. In fact, her first experience with theatre was here, when as part of Nalini de Alwis’s Drama club, she played Salome in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
She was nine years old. Though she’s never got over her initial stage fright, Nimmi says that she is “happiest in rehearsal, on stage, in a performance, on a film set, even learning my lines.”
What are you reading right now?
I recently finished reading Bill Bryson’s “Shakespeare”
Was it a good read?
I loved it. I was a bit apprehensive to read it as I thought it would be a bit heavy going, but it was far from that. I was fascinated at how he had woven together Shakespeare’s life through intricate details from mundane accounts such as births and deaths, court cases and land disputes.
Sounds utterly boring perhaps, but somehow Bryson’s passion for Shakespeare and his humour has spun a rather witty, factual tale that I couldn’t put down.
Where and when do you most like to read?
I like to snuggle up in bed and read…the time doesn’t matter, but I usually find the only time I have these days to read is in the evening.
Is there a book that you would like to star in the film version of and which character would you play?
After reading Anil’s Ghost I really, really want to play her. I know that Michael Ondaatje is open to the prospect of writing a screenplay for this, but he is so busy that by the time it happens I will probably be an old auntie.
Is there an author whose work you have consistently loved so much that you would pick up his/her books without even having to look at the blurb?
Isabel Allende.
Any book that you tend to quote from in casual conversation?
I am a sad geeky bunny: I tend to quote Shakespeare oddly. ‘Now is the winter of my discontent’ Richard III; ‘To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods’ Winter’s Tale; ‘farewell, god knows when we shall meet again,’ ‘A faint, cold fear runs through my veins,’ R & J. I am godday I know it…that is my own quote.
Neil Gaiman has spoken of how he can sometimes look out over a particular landscape and immediately recognize it as something out of the Lord of the Rings. He says this happens most with books that are deeply familiar, especially with those he read as a child.
What is the equivalent for you?
I got into Thomas Hardy when I was around 10-11 years old and my favourite is Tess. I grew up in a small village in Peterborough, that area is called the fen country and I remember reading Tess and really experiencing the beauty and vibrancy of the rolling fields and the infinite autumn colours surrounding me.
I loved that book and must have read it over and over again and for me what kept taking me back to it was Hardy’s vivid descriptions of landscape, a landscape that surrounded the little village I lived in.
In my late teens I remember reading Reef, while sitting in my cold almost empty room at university and it felt like such a luxury to be taken back home to the colours and smells and the sea and sand….when I went back home I decided to read it again to see how it made me feel…and it just wasn’t as magical as it was sitting in that pokey room in London.
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