Issue / A Song In Her Heart

by Anokhi Admin

A Song In Her Heart

Mar 08, 2015

On Concert Stage Or Silver Screen, Andrea Jeremiah Is Magnetic

Whether lighting up the screen in Bollywood blockbusters or electrifying audiences in concert arenas, Andrea Jeremiah has proven herself an artistic force to be reckoned with.

On stage, she sings with passion and has the dulcet tones of a trained singer — the result of an extensive musical education, beginning with the piano at age eight and working in theatre and with a band called Young Stars (which was modelled on Jackson 5) when she was 10.

Born and raised in an Anglo-Indian family in Chennai, she has a British grandparent she never met, but says London is her favourite city because she feels at home where she has ancestors. In addition to singing in the legendary SSE Arena, Wembley, as part of the Vanakkam London show in 2011, her last music video, which was released on her birthday this past January, was shot in London.

She admits that, lately, her music career has taken a back seat to her increasingly busy film career which, indeed, reads like a dream — from her meaty roles in director Gautham Menon’s Pachaikili Muthucharam and director Selvaraghavan's Aayirathil Oruvan, which both got her nominated for Vijay and Filmfare awards, to director Venkat Prabhu’s Tamil flick Mankatha and the Telugu-language box office hit Tadakha she starred in alongside popular Telugu actor Naga Chaitanya.

And then of course, there was also the much-loved character Anna she played in the high-grossing Malayalam-language film Annayum Rasoolum with actor Fahadh Faasil. “Possibly the most beautiful film I have done thus far in my career,” she beams. “A lot of people the world over have seen it; it’s just a magical journey of love.”

Versatility, in both acting style and language, has helped propel Jeremiah into a leading Bollywood star. When legendary actor Kamal Haasan was casting for his multilingual magnum opus Vishwaroopam, she was taken on for a pivotal role. This April, Uttama Villain, another long-awaited epic from Kamal Haasan is set to hit theatres. This time, Jeremiah joins the late legendary director K. Balachander in his last onscreen appearance and American actress Pooja Kumar.

“Kamal Hassan is really just mind-blowing,” she raves. “I’ve done three films with him now, and with every film, my respect and admiration just keeps growing — both as a person and as an actor.”

Jeremiah has five South Indian films in the works right now, but her first and deepest love is music. Recently, she teamed up with up-and-coming music producer Prithvi Chandrasekhar, a childhood friend and composer, and formed musical duo Krem Brûlée, which has already yielded a smash-hit single.

“I’ve known Prithvi for a long time. And I used to record a lot in his studio. So one of those days, he was playing me some of his stuff, and he was like, ‘Hey, if you can come up with a tune and some lyrics for this . . . ’ And that’s how ‘Never Let You Go’ happened. When we finished the track, it was like, ‘Whoa, it’s a lot better than we thought it would end up being.’ And so maybe we should do this more, work on an album or something.”

Jeremiah has also sung for top South Indian film music directors like Ilaiyaraaja, Harris Jayaraj, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Anirudh Ravichander and Devi Sri Prasad and won the Vijay award for the popular duet “Idhu Varai” from Goa.

Something fans don’t know about her is that she has a healthy appetite and she is a foodie who enjoys a host of different cuisines from Mexican to Indian.

“Usually when people meet me for the first time over a meal, they’re like, ‘Wow, it’s really good to see a girl eat. ” she laughs. “That’s what they say. I don’t know if that’s a compliment, but . . . I think life is for the living, you know? That’s pretty much it.”

BY ASHANTI OMKAR
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF ANDREA JEREMIAH
PUBLISHED IN MARCH 2015/ THE FASHION & STYLE ISSUE