Crossover star: Hala actor Geraldine Viswanathan is making waves at TIFF

Born to an Indian father and Swiss-German mother, Australian actor Geraldine Viswanathan is making waves at Toronto, writes Indira Kannan

She was the surprise breakout star of last year’s box office hit, Blockers, a raunchy comedy about three American teenage girls determined to lose their virginity on prom night and their equally determined parents’ ploys to stop them. Geraldine Viswanathan, an Australian actress of Indian origin, won rave reviews for her spunky and sensitive portrayal of Kayla, one of the teenagers. By the time she arrived for the Toronto International Film Festival this year, she had essayed pivotal roles in two more films that had their world premieres at TIFF – Hala and Bad Education.

So it went more or less according to script that TIFF named her one of its Rising Stars for 2019, a key honour from a festival known for picking Oscar favourites early. “Geraldine had been on my radar since last year when we first saw her performance in Hala, which had not yet come out,” says Natalie Semotiuk, the Rising Stars producer at TIFF. “I thought even then that she had a fresh and unique voice that we had not seen before.”

In Hala, directed by Minhal Baig, Viswanathan plays the title role, of a Pakistani-American teenager trying to straddle her two worlds. In Bad Education, she is an Indian American high school student reporter, and a key player in a cast that includes Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman, Oscar winner Allison Janney, as well as veteran comic star Ray Romano. This actor from Down Under is off to a flying start.

Viswanathan, 24, was born and raised in Newcastle, about two hours north of Sydney, Australia, with a father from Chennai and a Swiss-German mother. During her school days, she dreamed of a career in comedy. “I was a huge TV fan,” Viswanathan said during an interview in Toronto. “I thought I might want to be a TV writer or comedy actress. As I got more into acting, I fell in love with dramatic acting and tried to give myself more of a film education.”

Viswanathan in a still from Hala. Photo: Reuters

Even though she went to Los Angeles for a few months of acting classes when she was 18, it was not a meticulously planned exercise. As Viswanathan describes it, “I would do improv or theme study classes or random things here and there.” She got herself a US manager and had returned to Sydney and was sending out self-taped auditions when the Blockers opportunity landed. “I was working in a bowling alley, and my manager was like, ‘You have to get on a plane and meet Kay Cannon tomorrow’.” Cannon, a writer and producer on hit television comedies like 30 Rock and New Girl, and the Pitch Perfect film series, was directing Blockers. Barely had Viswanathan returned home after the audition when she was summoned back for the role. “I flew in on the weekend and started filming on Monday… it was crazy,” she recalls. “I love comedy films myself, they’re my first love and so to be in a studio comedy as my first thing was really special and I was just pinching myself all the time,” Viswanathan adds.

From Kayla to Hala was a big shift and a perfect opportunity for the actor to show off her versatility. Viswanathan shines as Hala, a quiet, introspective teenager in Chicago who skateboards in a hijab even as she struggles to reconcile her longing for freedom and her first crush on a classmate with an orthodox environment at home. There’s more to her seemingly liberal father and strict mother than meets the eye and Viswanathan navigates the twists and turns in her life with a quiet grace and humour, speaking volumes with her eyes.

In an interview, Baig said even she was surprised by Viswanathan’s audition for the role. “I knew that her work prior to this had been comedic. But her tape…was an incredible embodiment of everything I wanted in Hala. She visibly manifested her internal conflict, she had all these layers to her, there were multiple things going on even when she was saying nothing. And at the same time, she added something different that I was not expecting and that was the levity, the lightness, the charisma, which is undeniable, and something that she brings to every project she’s been a part of.”

Viswanathan admits the role of Hala was a little out of character for her. “After Blockers, I had done this Netflix movie called The Package, which is also a very silly comedy, and so it was a complete flip, a total 360, but I threw myself into it and really trusted Minhal. And it was nice to be more quiet and subdued,” she says. “I think it’s a challenge for me as well because in my life I am a little more outgoing maybe than Hala. Minhal would be like, ‘That was too Geraldine, you need to be more Hala’.”

In Bad Education, which is based on actual events, she plays Rachel Bhargava, a student reporter at a top public high school in Long Island, New York, who accidentally uncovers an embezzlement scandal involving senior school officials and doggedly pursues it despite discouragement from many quarters. The role gives her expressive face plenty of opportunity to show off her acting chops as well as comic timing, as she holds her own in the company of several senior actors for a performance that has already earned her positive reviews.

In both Blockers and Bad Education, Viswanathan’s characters are partly Indian American, but without their mixed race identity being their defining characteristic. “Casting is changing in a way that’s really exciting,” says Viswanathan. Referring to another example of colorblind casting, of Dev Patel in the title role of Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, she adds, “There are brown people in leading roles and I feel that’s so important. I get emotional talking about it because just seeing yourself on screen I think is hugely impactful and I’m so glad, it’s about time.”

Viswanathan has just finished filming, incidentally, in Toronto, for another comedy titled Broken Heart Gallery, and is trying to decide whether to move to Los Angeles or continue living mostly in New York, where her boyfriend lives. “It’s great fun, I’m excited to be there in my 20s,” she says about New York. She also spends time back home in Australia, where her parents and Indian grandparents live, with her grandmother’s cooking being a big draw. “My grandmom is an incredible cook – biryani, and sambhar and chapati and poori – for me and my sister, that’s our favourite,” she declares. “South Indian food definitely feels homely to me.”

She has more travel planned this year, to India, a country she visited for the first time when she was 18. “I feel like I’ve been a little bit disconnected from my Indian side, so I’m really excited to go to India soon for a chunk of time on my own. I’m trying to write something about it at the moment and I’m so excited to delve into that part of my heritage more,” she says. Viswanathan is certainly going places, on screen and beyond.