How actor-body double Sumadevi landed her first award for best actor at the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival for her role in G Prajesh Sen’s The Secret of Women is the stuff of movies. “Getting a break in cinema is a struggle, it is easier if you have godfathers or someone to prop you up,” says the soft-spoken actor, one of Malayalam cinema’s few female body doubles or ‘dupes’, as body doubles are colloquially referred to. It has been a month since she got the award but the feeling is still sinking in, she confesses.
For 12 years she waited on film sets, ‘becoming’ a body double to justify her presence there. The character or the length of the role did not matter, all she wanted was one role that would get her on the silver screen. She has been patient, but apprehensive. “I have seen directors chide actors when they don’t get the take right or they mess up. That intimidated me, and prevented me from asking for a chance,” says Suma. Another deterrent was, what she perceives as, her lack of ‘training’ in acting.
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