Urvashi slams National Award jury for giving her award in supporting category: ‘This is not pension to silently accept'

Urvashi received a Best Supporting Actress award for her 2024 film Ullozhukku when she was in contention for Best Actress. Here's what she said.

Actor Urvashi won the Best Supporting Actress award at the recently announced 71st National Film Awards. The 56-year-old won it for her performance as Leelamma in Christo Tomy’s 2024 film Ullozhukku, which also stars Parvathy Thiruvothu. Talking to Manorama News, while Urvashi expressed gratitude for the award, she also questioned if she needed to be younger to win Best Actress.

Urvashi plays Leelamma in Ullozhukku, which also stars Parvathy Thiruvothu.

Urvashi slams National Award jury

Urvashi questioned the logic behind categorising her role as ‘supporting’ when both she and Parvathy were contending in the Best Actress category. She questioned, “Is there any standard scale for acting? Or is it that after a certain age, this is all you’ll get?” Urvashi didn’t mince words as she added that these awards should make the recipient proud instead of being handed over with no explanation. “This is not pension money to be silently accepted. How are these decisions made? What criteria is followed?” she questioned.

Urvashi’s previous National Award

Incidentally, Urvashi faced something similar when she won the Best Supporting Actress award for the 2006 film Achuvinte Amma, in which she played the lead. She mentioned that even back then, there were ‘politics’ and she has only strived to make meaningful cinema over lobbying. She also called on Union Minister Suresh Gopi to investigate the process and advocate for Malayalam cinema’s rightful place.

71st National Film Awards

The 71st National Film Awards were announced on Friday night. Shah Rukh Khan and Vikrant Massey shared the Best Actor Award, while Rani Mukerji won Best Actress. 12th Fail won Best Film. The Malayalam film industry has been vocal about good films and performances from their industry being snubbed this year, like Prithviraj Sukumaran from Aadujeevitham—The Goat Life.

From Mollywood, Ullozhukku won Best Malayalam Film, 2018 won Best Production Design, and Pookkaalam won Best Editing. Vijayaraghavan won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in the film. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan also criticised The Kerala Story receiving a National Award.