Priya is ready with her Telugu debut film

Radhika Rajamani in Hyderabad

Slim and lithe Priya Anand is instantly endearing as she says she introduced herself with a simple, "Hi, I'm Priya."

Priya is ready with her Telugu debut film, Leader directed by Sekhar Kammula. The political drama also stars two other newcomers -- Rana Daggubati and Richa Gangopadhya.

After completing her education in media and journalism in the US, Priya left for India to stay with her grandparents. Her first Tamil film Vamanan got her noticed. "Cinema has been an obsession since a young age. I thought I would work on the technical aspects but I never thought I would be an actor," says the chirpy actress.

"Opportunities have come my way but it's been quite tough to get where I am. I had to audition thrice for Leader to prove myself," she tells Radhika Rajamani. Here are excerpts from the interview.

You acted in two Tamil films -- Vamanan and Pugaippadam -- before signing your maiden Telugu film Leader. What made you do Leader? Was it the fact that that it was being directed by Sekhar Kammula and the role therefore would have some substance to it?

All of it, I think. I wanted to do Telugu films when I started acting. My Dad is from there [Telugu]. I have early memories of watching Telugu films. I wanted to do a nice and big movie so when I got a call to audition for Leader, I did it. There were 50 others, too many to comprehend.

Leader is produced by a big banner AVM. Sekhar garu writes his movies well and he is also launching Rana with Leader. So it was a triple-treat.

Being half-Telugu, half-Tamil you dubbed the dialogues yourself. How challenging was it to do so?

I love dubbing the dialogues. I started with Tamil and then did Telugu. Even though my mom is Tamil and dad is Telugu we spoke English at home. It was in fact a challenge to dub the English dialogues sans my accent. Dubbing as a process was easy. Getting the diction right was hard.