I ran screaming to Salman: Katrina

By Subhash K Jha

Currently Katrina Kaif is in Australia shooting for Vipul Shah's comedy Singh Is King.

Speaking from Australia Katrina says, "I'm here till the middle of December. And I do miss Mumbai. But right now I've my mom and sister with me. So that makes it so much better."

For Katrina Kaif it's been a somewhat different Diwali this year in Australia.

"Vipul had organized some awesome fireworks on the beach. So all of us from the unit, Indian and Australian, were down on the beach for Diwali. Then we went to an Indian restaurant. Luckily nobody played cards. The fact that we did sociable things rather than play cards made this Diwali very special."

Katrina has been entering the laughter zone once too often in her career.

Is she getting wary of doing comedies? "I wouldn't say that. But it's true that in our comedies the heroines have very little to do except smile vacuously and watch the boys have a good time.

However Vipul is very very special to me. I'd be a tree in his film if he wanted to be. It just so happened that the people who were comfortable working with me initially were dabbling in comedy.

My debut Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya, then Partner and now Welcome are all comedies. The territory is getting a bit too familiar with me. Initially it was important for me to get those commercial hits to my credit. Now that it's happened I'm consciously doing other kinds of films."

One non-comedy role that Katrina is currently shooting is Subhash Ghai's Main Yuvraaj.

"And I get to play the cello in Subhashji's film. The thing with the cello is, you can't completely learn to play it all at once, like the piano or the sitar. It's an instrument that takes years to master."

Katrina sat with an orchestra player in Bombay to get the body posture of the cello player right. "Luckily for me Subhashji's films have an ongoing theme piece running through the music soundtrack.

That's the one which I've familiarized myself with on the cello. I learnt the chords for that piece like a piece of choreography. When people see me doing that piece they wouldn't find me faking it.

We were shooting in a castle in Austria with a German orchestra conductor guiding my movements. When I got it right I ran screaming to Salman, Arjun and everyone on the sets. Subhashji had to calm me down. 'Theek hai, beta. Now the next shot.'

She describes Singh Is King as a complete comedy. "It'll be my funniest comedy so far, and for a change not slapstick. I've been doing quite a lot of comedies. This is my second comedy in a row with director Anees Bazmi after Welcome, and that too with Akshay Kumar again."

She admits Akshay's comic timing has been a learning experience. "You do learn from everyone you work with. He's the master of his genre. He knows what works best for him. And that for any actor is a big USP."