Actor Samyuktha on dropping her surname Menon from social media: ‘I realised I shouldn’t have it when…’

Actor Samyuktha, who is awaiting the release of her forthcoming Tamil-Telugu bilingual thriller Vaathi, recently opened up about the reason behind her decision to drop her surname. A clip from a recent interview, where she explained why she decided to remove her surname has attracted the attention of social media users.

Samyuktha was last seen in Pawan Kalyan’s Telugu film Bheemla Nayak, which also starred Rana Daggubati. She played Rana’s wife in the movie, which was a remake of Malayalam blockbuster Ayyappanum Koshiyum. In a recent interview, Samyuktha spoke about officially dropping her surname to set the right example.

In the clip, she revealed that she has removed her surname on all her social media pages and also from the promotional content of her movies. “This thought occurred to me long back. When we are enrolled into a school, we need a name for official purpose. So we never think so much back then. I always used to think about why people have this, this ‘tail’. The thought really struck me when I became an actor. When I understood the responsibility of an actor, I realised I shouldn’t have it (surname),” Samyuktha said in an interview to SS Music.

She further added, “When I want to see equality, humanity and love all around, keeping a surname makes it very contradictory to what I want. Also, my parents are divorced and my mother wished to not retain my father’s surname. I wanted to respect my mother’s feelings.”

In Vaathi, Samyuktha plays a biology teacher. Directed by Venky Atluri, the film also stars Dhanush and Samuthirakani. Set in the 1990s, the film will shine the spotlight on privatisation of the education system and how private schools took over during that time period. The film, shot as a bilingual in Tamil and Telugu, will mark Dhanush’s debut in Telugu industry. It is titled Sir in Telugu and both the versions of the movie will release worldwide on February 17.