Sumukhi Suresh

Sumukhi Suresh (17 October 1987)^[1][2][3] is an Indian actor, stand-up comedian, writer and director.^[4] She is known for humorous sketches which she writes and performs in. In an online article, Hindustan Times referred to Sumukhi Suresh as "India's Tina Fey."^[5] She has been a part of stand-up comedy shows like Comicstaan, Go Straight Take Left, Comedy Premium League, her solo special Don't Tell Amma, and the web series, Pushpavalli.^[6]

Sumukhi Suresh was born on 18 October 1987 in Nagpur, although her mother is from Tamil Nadu. She completed her schooling from The Chanda Devi Saraf School, Nagpur and her graduation from M.O.P Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai. Suresh moved to Bengaluru in 2009 and started working at Hippocampus, a Children's Library. She then went on to work as a chef and was also employed at a food laboratory for a brief period of time.^[7]

In 2013, Sumukhi joined The Improv,^[8] which was an improvisational comedy show in Bengaluru, while working at the laboratory. Along with the rest of the Improv team, Sumukhi performed in 100 shows in Bengaluru, Dubai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Sweden.^[9] In 2015, she quit her full-time job to start a career in comedy.^[10][11]

Sumukhi's first video was "Anu Aunty- Engineering Anthem" with Varun Agrawal. She then did the "Maid Sketch" with Sanjay Manaktala as the boisterous Parvati Bai. Sumukhi rose to fame after portraying the character of Sumukhi Chawla, an NGO employee, in India's first mockumentary-style YouTube series, Better Life Foundation.^[12][13] Sumukhi has performed comedy shows with Naveen Richard, the writer of the show Better Life Foundation.^[14] She also gained popularity for her property "Disgust Me", an exclusive for women-only stand-up comedy show.^[15][16]

While talking about improvisation skills in content creation, she said, "While acting comes to me in an easy manner, stand-up takes a lot more effort. I started my career with Improv and even now I carry improvisational skills into everything I do. As a matter of fact, when I work with Richard, we don’t write the dialogue first, rather we improv first."^[17]

After getting much appreciation for her role in Better Life Foundation, Sumukhi launched a video series called Behti Naak on her own YouTube channel. In the video series, she plays Behti Naak, a 10-year-old girl with a deadpan style of humour. The videos became viral.^[18]

Sumukhi was approached by Amazon Prime, India to make a web series. Pushpavalli, a semi-autobiagraphical series created by Sumukhi Suresh, was released on 15 December on Amazon Prime Video in India and received positive reviews.^[19][12] The show is directed by Debbie Rao and stars Naveen Richard, Manish Anand, Preetika Chawla and Shraddha. She said, "I'm glad Amazon did not impose on me that the show had to be in Hindi. Even if the streaming services have subtitles, a Hindi show does immensely well. But I didn't want that. I wanted an accurate representation of Bengaluru, where everyone knows at least three languages. I'm glad I could present South Indian people with all their quirks and ticks. I was also accused of representing every member of the community as flawed. But my defence was, 'Look at Nikhil [the man Pushpavalli falls in love with and moves city for]!' He's a Kannadiga, and he looks like a bloody flower."^[20] Naveen Richard pointed to Firstpost that he connected with Sumukhi the most because of their 'South Indian backgrounds'.^[20]

Sumukhi performed her first stand up special Don't Tell Amma for Amazon Prime Video India which, since its release, has received positive reviews. This show was recorded in Bangalore. The show wittily describes the relationship between millennials and their Indian Mothers. Though the title says Don't tell Amma (Mother), interestingly enough, many people watched the show with their mothers.

Sumukhi, along with fellow comedian and absurdist Naveen Richard, co-created the Prime Video show Go Straight Take Left. The show is a compilation of six sketches.^[21]

In 2018, Sumukhi Suresh hosted the first season of Prime Video's web series Comicstaan alongside comedian Abish Mathew.^[22][23] She was a part of the judges' panel for the second season of the same show with Urooj Ashfaq replacing her as host.^[24][22]

Sumukhi has acted in Humble Politician Nograj, a 2018 Kannadapolitical satire film.. She plays the role of Lavanya, wife of Nograj (Danish Sait).^[25]

En una conversación con Newsx , afirmó que la industria de la comedia aún está en su apogeo y, por lo tanto, sigue siendo más una comunidad que una industria. También opina que, para la comedia, las redes sociales y los espectáculos en vivo son igualmente importantes y no pueden sustituirse mutuamente. ^{[ 26 ]}

Sumukhi Suresh fundó su empresa, Motormouth Writers Pvt Ltd, en 2022. Su objetivo es escribir y crear series y películas centradas en personajes femeninos. La meta de Motormouth es pasar de ser un estudio de escritura a producir series y películas.

Al hablar de su visión para Motormouth, dice: «Si queremos cambiar la narrativa, necesitamos estar en posiciones de poder. Quiero cambiar la cultura creando más protagonistas femeninas. Quiero contar historias con personajes reales y con defectos, que no sean solo atractivas y sexys, como Sati Savitri, vampiresas o cualquier otra cosa por el estilo. Las mujeres reales, y las personas en general, son cien cosas a la vez en cualquier momento dado, y quiero que nuestro contenido refleje eso». ^{[ 6 ]}

Suresh dijo: "Quiero que la gente que me vea, especialmente las chicas, piensen: 'Necesito tener la confianza de ella', porque yo quería ver a alguien así cuando era joven". ^{[ 27 ]}