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29 Oct 2026, 2:30 am
Melancholic lover is a role that actor Gouri G Kishan has mastered with performances in 96 , its Telugu remake Jaanu , and in the Malayalam film Anugraheethan Antony . She has also perfected playing the younger version of an older character. Her Manjula in the upcoming JioHotstar series Love Always blends both. “In a way, getting your heart broken is a beautiful thing. Don’t mistake the statement. You need the capacity to express love genuinely to end up getting disappointed,” she begins. Gouri reveals she felt stressed by the demand to play a woman her age in a period setting, and a 60-year-old inside a 20-something woman’s body in the present. “As far as playing younger versions of an older character, I am thankful to both Prem sir and Madhu ma’am for not asking me to watch the older films of Trisha ma’am and Jayasudha ma’am. Both the filmmakers had clear details in the writing, and the script reading sessions helped.”
Jayasudha, on the other hand, wishes she had Manjula’s magical powers to be transported back to her twenties. “Not that I have any complaints about my life. I entered the industry when I was 12 and became a top-tier heroine by the time I turned 20. So I wasn’t exposed to much beyond films. Having grown up around Chepauk Stadium, I’ve always been fascinated by cricket. So if I could turn the clock back forty years, I would want to pursue the sport.”
Elaborating on how she captured the character’s dualities in Love Always , Gouri says she and veteran actor Jayasudha practiced certain mannerisms. “For example, whenever Manjula gets stressed, she pulls her ear down. So with such tiny mannerisms, I was able to pull off this character,” says Gouri, who calls herself an ‘old soul’ who swears by old-school romance. “My movie and music tastes prove the same. In fact, people in their 30s and 40s ask me why I behave like an old person.”
Interestingly, Jayasudha, who has been acting for over five decades, believes that focussing too much on the technicalities of the performance robs scenes of their magic. “The show is less about logic and more about magic. Barring a few scenes that required Gouri and me to follow a pattern, we went with the flow. Sometimes, especially in stories like this one, strivin
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