I’m really glad that I gave myself time to recover: Samantha Ruth Prabhu

It’s hard to imagine but Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s biggest dream at one point in her life was to own a house. As the actor gets ready to make her international debut with Raj and DK’s ‘Citadel’ and enjoys a dedicated fanbase among Tamil, Telugu and Hindi-speaking people, she advocates dreaming big, giving the example of her own life.

Samantha has returned to acting after a year-long break to recuperate from auto-immune disease myositis and has braved both physical and mental struggles. Calling the decision to take the break her ‘best and hardest’ decision, she said that she wouldn’t have been able to recover without it.

She told ‘Femina’ in an interview, “It was the best decision because there’s no way I would have been able to continue working. The stress of work, coupled with the condition, isn’t the easiest thing to handle. I’m really glad that I gave myself time to recover. I had been working for 13 years straight.”

Samantha said that the break didn’t just help her to heal physically, it also helped her cope with self-loathing and low confidence. “I’ve had my fair share of self-loathing and really low confidence, but I’ve always strived to grow as a person. With that growth came a deeper understanding of my insecurities and self-loathing. I was able to heal by addressing them - not by trying to fix them from the outside, but by fixing the inner trauma that needed more healing than any external quick fix.”

The break seems to have also made Samantha wary of slanderous criticism and overwhelming praise. She claimed that she is a big girl who can spot both. “Sometimes, being an actor makes your world very small and closed. There tends to be a group of ‘yes’ people around you who don’t usually tell you what is on their mind.”