She reigned the South Indian cinema industry for many years. In a span of ten years, she had acted with all the top stars from the filmdom – Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Ajith, Suriya, Vijay, Vikram, Madhavan – the list is endless. Her simple and sweet persona on and off-screen has given a fan following that would put her contemporaries to shame.

After a long hiatus, the actor is making a comeback in RosshanAndrrews’ 36 Vayadhinile, a remake of the Malayalam blockbuster How Old Are You. She captured the hearts of millions from the time she forayed into the cinema industry. After being a part of the filmdom for a decade, this bubbly actor decided to take a break and focus on her family life. Jyothika or Jo, as she is fondly called by her fans never left their minds and hearts, even during her seven-year sabbatical.

“I was very excited to be getting married to Suriya and missing out on the big films did not matter that much.”

Although it was her decision, it must have been a really hard one especially since she was doing the best movies of her career at that time. Also didn’t she suddenly feel she was missing her work post her marriage, we ask. Smiling, she says, “I was very excited to be getting married to Suriya that nothing else mattered. In fact, I had to return the advances of two big Telugu films – one was a Selvaraghavan film (which Trisha signed on later and went on to become a big hit) and the other was a film with Nagarjuna. I wanted everything in my life to happen at the right time! I got married at the age of 27 and immediately had my first child, Diya, as we did not want to wait any longer. So I really did not have the time to miss cinema.” A few years later, the couple had their second child, Dev.“I could not even think about leaving my children alone and focus on my career again. Of course, I have done a few endorsements during my break, but apart from that I have spent every waking moment focusing on my family,” she says.