Ashwathy Ravikumar (Ashwathy Warrier): A Person with Multiple Talents

Ashwathy Ravikumar is a well known film actress, she is a high spirited and zestful person. Ashwathy has experience in media production, coordination and research along with acting from the Indian TV and Film industries.

She performed in various live events across the country. She performed and had sung a song entitled Yedachu in association with T – series, the song was released on Youtube in the year 2014.

     Ashwathy has explored various acting workshops. Some of her best learning and experiences were from Anupam kher school – The actor prepares, Adishakti – Pondicherry, India. Later she attended workshops with Atul Mongia – Mumbai, India and she even received a filmmaking certificate from London film academy in UK – United Kingdom.

    She was born to Mr. A. V. Ravikumar and Mrs. Ambili Ravikumar on March 1, at Mumbai. Her father is one of the famous business tycoons of Chennai, India. He owns a company named Flyjac logistics with the Hitachi transports group, he is also the trustee of the Warrier foundation (A private family NGO). Moreover, he is also a sound illusion artist.

    Her mother Ambili Ravikumar is a home maker, who is highly passionate about home keeping, films and dance.

    Ashwathy has got a younger brother, Akash Ravikumar. He is the Managing Director of an IT solutions company called Unifo solutions and is an independent musician.

     She dedicated most of her childhood by performing in various dance, music and drama competitions and always won multiple awards. While in school she was a good swimmer too. Later she got trained in Carnatic music and Bharathnatyam. Thereafter, western classical music under the assistance of famous Austin’s Paul sir and western dance forms from the academy of Modern danse (under Ms. Kokila Hariram ).

   Ashwathy has completed her schooling from PSBB – Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, K. K. Nagar, Chennai. After that she entered SVCE – Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Chennai to pursue her graduation in the stream of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. 

     Though Ashwathy was interested in pursuing her career in media, her parents wanted her to have a strong educational background so she then joined SVCE to pursue her engineering. Though she joined engineering she parallelly started modelling out of her passion towards the film industry.

    Her hard work paid off and as a result she got selected for a sitcom titled Yuppies Ku Mattum Alla ( puthiyathalaimurai TV ) by the end of her first year of graduation. Then later she started climbing up the ladder of her career, sooner begun modelling for TVC and ramp shows. Afterthat, she also performed in her first debut on the silver screen – Oh baby girl song from Maalai pozhudhin mayakathilaey.

    She did not stop there, instead continued working throughout her college days. Acted in various sitcoms, hosted few travel shows on dance and culture and did take up film opportunities as well.

   According to Ashwathy the best memory of her was from the days when she performed as the lead in her first major drama production while in 12th standard. It was a musical dance drama production named Subhodayam. This was started by a group of her friends and herself, which became popular and ended up staging 3 ticketed shows at the prestigious Bharat Kalachar. A director then picked her from there to perform as a lead actress for a telefilm.

     Ashwathy worked in various movies till date as Maalai pozhuthin mayakathile, Neethane en ponvasantham, Yetto vellipoyindhi manasu, Ente sathyanweshana parikshanangal, Maan Karate, Kannula Kaasa Kattappa and Jagame Thanthiram.

   Though she faced a lot of highs and lows, Ashwathy says that “Each of these movies and the experiences were special and I learnt a lot along the way.”

   When asked about her struggle to get into industry Ashwathy replied in this way, “Initially when I started out in the industry out of curiosity and passion, I got plenty of opportunities to do characters and small roles. I really enjoyed doing them. The experiences taught me a lot and helped me understand the craft, the people and the working of this field and industry. But when I finally decided to get serious about my career and wanted to do lead parts or substantial roles in good films, the struggle got real. I faced a lot of harassment, sleaze and emotional torment in various forms. It shed light into a whole other side of the industry that I had only heard of. My passion and love for the craft, encouragement and support from my family and friends gave me the confidence to fight and face the issues. I then continued hustling to reach the point that I wanted to.”

    When asked about her first audition experience she said that, “My first major film audition was with Maniratnam sir, I auditioned for the film Kadal. I was completely petrified and performed terribly in the audition. Though the audition did not go good, mani sir spoke a few encouraging words which actually turned out to be my biggest inspiration to become an actor. I consider this as one of my worst experiences because I embarrassed myself in front of Maniratnam sir, but the biggest blessing is that it helped me to focus on what was actually important to learn the craft.”

Ashwathy shared her experience for the first time on camera and silver screen in this way, “OH baby girl music video was my first experience in front of the film camera. I remember walking into the set, a hundred people looking at me from the light man to the director and there was a nervous energy that I couldn’t shake off. But I was always comfortable as a dancer and when the song played and I performed the first shot, I remembered the claps on the set and the rush I felt from that. Then the biggest moment came when I went to the theatres for the first day first show with my family, the song played on the silver screen and I couldn’t believe seeing myself there. It was a magical moment. The audience went crazy and were whistling and dancing to the song and that was the biggest sense of happiness that had flooded me over. I remember leaving the theatre that day with a warm and fuzzy feeling.”

     Ashwathy said, “My high point was the recognition I got after Maankarte. It was very overwhelming but also turned out to be a problem cause I started getting called for friend roles and was stuck. I was not able to progress into any substantial roles and took a two year break cause I could not shake off the friend typecasting by the industry. It was a major struggle to get a good opportunity or role after that and finally got the opportunity to perform as the lead actress in the year 2016.”

      Ashwathy Ravi Kumar married Abilash Unni Krishnan in the year 2017. She met Abilash 8 years ago and got married 3 years ago and is now settled in the UK – United Kingdom. She travels  frequently between London and India for work purposes.

   Abilash has always been her constant reminder and teacher on being happy and living a contented life with what she  has. This helped her stay balanced in her personal life .

   Ashwathy’s parents have been the biggest role models in her life. They have always been high achievers and are successful in personal and professional life. They are very balanced and that has taught her about quality living. 

Ashwathy says that she acquired inspiration from 2 special people in her life, Abhilash (her Husband) and Avinash (her Best Friend). Avinash was the one who introduced her to the craft of films and taught her the happiness of having a burning passion and pushing herself hard to achieve it. She says that he often inspires her to continue to strive for her love of cinema

  Ashwathy feels that she hasn’t achieved a huge success in terms of career externally but has personally achieved everything that she had set out for. Right from the beginning of wanting to be a model, show host, professional dancer , to all the way to being a leading actress.

   Apart from working on screen, Ashwathy currently is working to develop her knowledge in production related fields. Her most recent work was for Jagame Thanthiram where she worked with the producers of film Sashikanth sir and Ram sir and learnt a lot about production. It was a fantastic opportunity and a big learning curve for her .

  Moreover, she currently works for Independent films directly under Jani Guest (A famous UK film and ad production house). It is a wonderful platform where she at present is learning about the international film and advertisement industry with thorough experience. She works with famous Directors like Guy Ritchie and Cary Joji Fukunaga and it’s all because of her guide, philosopher and boss Jani Guest who is a famous personality in the media industry in the UK and the Managing director of Independent films.

      Currently Ashwathy Ravi Kumar is Working on an independent Hindi feature project as one of the leads in collaboration with a team in Mumbai. She is going to play one of the lead roles in a Tamil crime thriller web series produced by Applause media Mumbai which is slated for release soon.

    Congratulations Ashwathy for all the success and projects  till date and also All the best for the coming ones. Hope we get to see your work a lot in forthcoming days.