In 2014, Warrier, who quit cinema in 1999, made a powerful comeback with How Old Are You? (2014), which is about a 36-year-old Nirupama Rajeev ( Warrier) who put her family above her professional ambitions, only to realise they neither value her contributions nor respect her. “Who decides the expiry date of a woman’s dream?” – this is the film’s central question, and in addition to the several parallels between Warrier’s own life and Nirupama’s story, there were many dialogues from the film that resonated closely with many women in the audience. Warrier herself was 36 at the time incidentally and How Old Are You? inspired another actor to make her comeback in a remake – Jyothika from the Tamil film industry who had also quit her career when she got married.
Warrier made her debut in Malayalam cinema in 1995 with the family drama Sakshyam. She was 17 at the time. Between 1995 and 1999, she acted in a whopping 20 films, including blockbusters such as Aaram Thampuran (1997) and Kanmadam (1998) with superstar Mohanlal. The actor became a favourite with directors not only for her natural performances, but also her dance skills (she’s a professional Kuchipudi dancer). She did several films like Sallapam (1995), Kaliveedu (1996), Thooval Kottaram (1995), Irattakuttikalude Achan (1997), Summer in Bethlehem (1998) and Kanmadam (1998) where she proved her versatility, playing roles that ranged from a lover and mother of twins to a free-spirited brat and a blacksmith with an acidic tongue. She won a special mention from the jury at the National Awards for her performance in Kannezhuthi Pottum Thottu (1999), a revenge drama in which she plays a woman who uses her sexuality to seek justice for the murder of her parents. That same year, she married her co-star Dileep and at age 21, when she was at the height of her career, she bid goodbye to films.