Her father had been strictly against Amala pursuing an acting career, but was forced to accept her decision with her older brother, Abijith, strongly backing her ambition.[12] She later claimed she had performing arts in her DNA, revealing that her mother was a singer and her dad was into theatre in college.[24] Amala had changed her on-screen name to Anakha, on director Samy's insistence, who cited that another actress, Amala had already made her name popular. However, after the failure of Sindhu Samaveli, she reverted to her birth name since she felt that the replacement had brought her bad luck
