Sonam Kapoor interviewed for Vogue India by Sonia Faleiro
"Inside a white trailor, one widy morning in Filmistan, a 22 year old girl assesses herself in a large mirror. "Do i look fat?" she wonders aloud. Her make-up artist, Doris Godambe, gently smacks the back of her head. "She's actually thinking, 'I'm so beautiful!"
Sonam Kapoor, who this autumn make's her acting debut in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's fifth film Saawariya, isn't off the mark. Her long legs are sheathed in black leggings over which she wears a black mini skirt and a pinstriped shirt knotted at the waist. She accessorises with scruffy Chanel flats, her 21st birthday present- a Cartier watch -and a ring studded with a dozen uncut diamonds. At 5'10, she has a toned stomach, gleaming black hair falling to her waist, rose pink nails, and a aquiline nose. At this time, 23 people are milling around her chair, as, to the strains of Gaata rahe mera dil from her ipod, she eats sandwiches, chugs Red Bull, and has her make up applied. Controlled amidst the madness, she matches me question for question: "Have you read Brecht?" "Have you been to college?" "Do you know Kofi Annan," she enquires. <>Black as an Assistant Director. "I didn't know Sanjay from Adam," she shrugs. "But i loved his work. The first time we met he gasped, 'You should be an actress!' And i thought, "What? I'm 86 kilos! I'm a cow!"
But Bhansali, who, unusually for indian cinema, will craft an entire film around his leading lady, is a man who knows his mind. After Black wrapped up, he sought permission from Anil and Sunita before informing their child that she would star in his film. In the year since, Kapoor says, the only emotion she hasn't experienced is fear. "I have nothing to lose," she says, calmly. "I don't work for money or fame. I'm doing this for fun."
That may well be, but the reason Kapoor will succeed irrespective of her lack of personal ambition is because Bhansali, who understands success like few others do, and of whose influence she says, "I am a product of."
The mentor and his current muse have a bemusing relationship, at least to those around. In a brief phone converstation with him, her languid demeanour snaps to attention; she says "yes sir" and means it, 15 times. "We love each other," she admits, while Godambe says, "He will yell, she will cry, and then a little while later they will be hugging and laughing. People like us shouldn't get involved!" On the shoot, the mercurial director veers between admiring his protege's beauty to wondering aloud, "Hasn't she become too fat to wear these clothes?"
Nevertheless, the two appear to cherish one another, and if Bhansali has given Kapoor a dream debut, then she too, with her lineage and beauty, is no less of a catch. When i ask her what she will miss most about acting under him, she speaks of the everyday interactions, which, over time, solidfied their relationship. "On set i would bring 5 dabbas of food for lunch, Salman (Khan) would have 5, and Sanjay would just be nibbling on a little Gujarati food," she smiles. "We'd talk about everything! Films, and of course, gossip! I'd finish a really serious shot and Sanjay will be running towards me saying, "Have you heard the latest?"
These days Kapoor's life is in tumult. She has sent "five hundred clothes to be stitched!" The press hounds her. She studies kathak and modern dance, exercises and diets. Yet, she tells me, with childlike glee, she still find time to smuggle a box of chocolates into bed at night, to devour with another Chuck Palahniuk novel.
"I'm the most unlikely film star," she grins, pleased"
I hope you enjoy the article as i had to type it out instead of copy paste!!!
Does anyone have the original print of the article in the first edition of Vogue India? Did it come with any new pictures of the shoot?
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