Indian actress Freida Pinto says her ethnicity is never an issue as far as roles are concerned
FREIDA PINTO THOUGHT dealing with reporters and photographers at big movie premieres would be a breeze after her experience on her first red carpet two years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"I'm gonna tell you, there was not a single soul on the red carpet for Slumdog Millionaire. Not a single soul. Just a photographer and one person doing the interview," said Pinto, who came to the festival an unknown and left a rising star after the movie shot from obscurity to win the festival's audience award for favourite film on its way to Academy Awards triumph and box-office success.
"I was extremely nervous here about facing a million people for the first time, so I was like, oh, red carpets are easy. But things have changed dramatically since that time," Pinto said in an interview with an american magazine..
This time, photographers were awaiting her arrival at Toronto airport, and she has been one of the festival's main glamour girls alongside boyfriend Dev Patel, her Slumdog co-star.
Pinto, 25, was raised in Mumbai and worked as a model and a TV travel show host before making her screen debut in Slumdog.
She has been working almost nonstop since, co-starring in the upcoming Greek mythology action tale Immortals and a Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise of the Apes and Middle East oil drama Black Thirst.
"We wanted somebody that he looked out the window at who was an obscure object of desire. We figured, who could it be? He's married to Naomi Watts, who is so beautiful and such a wonderful actress. What could lure a guy from Naomi Watts? Nothing really," Allen said.
Then someone suggested Pinto, whom he had seen in Slumdog. Allen said he snapped his fingers, set up a meeting and quickly hired her. He kept her in wide shots through her early scenes so the audience only saw her from a distance until she sits down in a restaurant opposite Brolin.
"You see that face close up over the table, and that face is pulverising. She's so beautiful," Allen said.
Pinto, whose father is a retired bank officer and mother is a school principal, said she decided at a young age that she wanted to act.
"My mum and my sister would sometimes catch me red-handed standing in front of the mirror, just being dramatic, imitating characters I had seen in a film or on television. Doing funny voices," Pinto said. "They'd laugh at me, but they'd always say, 'You know what? You're going to do exactly this when you grow up. You're going to be in show business.'"
While Mumbai's Bollywood film industry is the busiest on the planet, Pinto aims to work in English-language productions around the world, wherever she finds the right roles.
"I am the minority, as one might call it, in the film industry out here, so I have to be very careful as to what films I take up," Pinto said. "We don't have too many Indian stars here. Some really talented people have tried who've never really made it, and I feel this is a brilliant opportunity for me to open doors even to them, not just for myself.
"I think everybody, bit by bit, is becoming colourblind, and that's really nice, because none of the films that I've done so far have focused on ethnicity as far as I'm concerned. And that makes me really happy."
Under pressure
WHEN IT COMES to acting roles, Freida Pinto has yet to meet her tall, dark stranger.
In Woody Allen's wry comedy You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, the stranger means different things to different characters: handsome lover to one, possibly death to another.
Pinto said her metaphorical stranger is not being able to live a fantasy such as working with Allen and co-star Josh Brolin.
"I was sick to my stomach knowing I had two amazing talents ' Josh Brolin, Woody Allen ' working with me," she said. "I spent my first days being nervous and being very petrified about which way I was going ' was I going to get fired? It was this immense amount of pressure and stress."
Once Pinto got over the initial jitters of joining an ensemble of acclaimed actors in her third film, she said her portrayal of mystery woman Dia came very easily.
"Being the muse and being mysterious is not something I had to work on. It was something that needed to come naturally," she said. "It's like being thrown into the deep end. You have to learn to swim or you drown. I think I learned to swim."
In Miral, Pinto plays the role of a young Palestinian girl growing up in East Jerusalem. Miral gleaned a lukewarm reception from critics, a potentially hurtful experience for a new actor, said Pinto.
"I could be destroyed by it, but it gave me more strength in a way," she said. "I was blessed that I had two amazing people who believed in me ' Julian and Woody ' straight after the Danny Boyle film. That gives you confidence. My career path has not been bad so I have nothing to complain about."
Fan Fictions
Hindi TV Shows
1