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Deepika Padukone Vogue September 2013 Candid Interview.
1Posted by Nancy Dutta You May Also Like News on: Interview at Sunday, September 01, 2013
Here is the latest Candid chit-chat of Deepika Padukone to Vogue September 2013 Magazine Issue. Excerpts from the Interview.
Credits (Vogue India) - Less than 15 minutes before I'm meant to arrive at her home, Deepika Padukone sends me a text message asking if we could delay our appointment.
"Can we meet half an hour later? Flying out to Macau for IIFA tonight. Have errands to run," she tells me.
Some 40 minutes later, I'm in the elevator heading upstairs to meet Bollywood's new queen.
It's been a turnaround year for the 27-year-old actor, who's had four back-to-back box office hits in 12 months (Cocktail, Race 2, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express).
And thanks to the electric chemistry they shared in their recent blockbuster, it's her (not Katrina Kaif) that Ranbir Kapoor's fans seem to want him to end up with eventually. But number games and sizzling love scenes aside, the most fascinating thing about the star today is her freshly-minted outlook, a whole new savoir faire.
In grey sweats and a loose T-shirt, her Grecian tresses casually tied back, Padukone answers the door to her penthouse apartment on the 26th floor of the Prabhadevi high-rise that she moved into some months ago.
I pause. Much newsprint has been exhausted discussing her doe eyes, and it's not hard to see why fans -- particularly men - continue to be seduced by them.
It's the first thing you noticed when she made her entry with Om Shanti Om six years ago, and they're still her most marked feature. She's in on the secret herself; no wonder she uses them to great effect on screen. In wordless scenes in Yeh Jawaani..., she employs them to strum up sympathy, to suggest mischief, and to convey great pain.
Today, though, they're happy eyes.
"My general philosophy these days is not to expect too much, but I can't deny that [the attention] feels nice. People now tend to look at me beyond the glamour and the looks," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "The morning after a film releases, your phone is flooded with messages. It's a beautiful high. But you can't let it get to you. You have to get right back to work."
The actor reveals she's a little surprised fans have shown more love to her character inYeh Jawaani... than to the wild child she played in Cocktail. "I'm nothing like Veronica; I don't live that lifestyle, so Cocktail was a harder film for me," she explains. "Ranbir says he finds it harder to play himself. He likes to hide behind a character. But I found Yeh Jawaani's Naina Talwar easier to slip into because I'm like her: quiet, focussed, shy. Ayan [Mukerji] has known me for many years, so his brief while directing me was: 'Babu, you know what to do. Feel beautiful, be yourself.'"
You won't catch her taking the "beautiful" image too seriously. I ask her if she wakes up feeling like a million dollars every morning. "I wake up feeling disfigured and swollen," she insists. "And that doesn't go away until I've had my workout," she adds.
Since she's always had the discipline of an athlete, Padukone actually enjoys her gym sessions - a mash-up of pilates, yoga, stretches and a smattering of cardio - before she's ready to take on the world.
The Closure
The lousy weather demands that we stay indoors. We're settled on a long burgundy couch, enjoying the view from her deck. It's a terrific, all-encompassing view of Mumbai, and on mornings that aren't grey and wet, she says she stands outside sipping her first cup of coffee.
In June, she threw a wild housewarming party, the weekend after Yeh Jawaani... opened to full houses.
At the do, one hears ex-boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor laughingly egged on her current (rumoured) beau Ranveer Singh to take his shirt off. In fact, the film's marketing campaign capitalised on the history that Kapoor and she had shared a few years ago - a relationship that hit the doldrums with some bitterness from Padukone's side when it ended.
It was all that a hungry media could harp on when the promotional blitzkrieg began. At the film's first media event, the queries wandered towards her famous 'RK' tattoo, making Kapoor snap at a journalist. Yet we watched as the calm-as-Zen actor let the probing questions float above her.
Recalling the incident, Padukone says, "We tried to keep it as dignified as possible. We didn't intend [our relationship to be] a marketing strategy."
What's the trick, then, to breaking up without an almighty mess? "Well, Ranbir says it's closure. I hadn't thought of that. For me, it's more like a feeling. It's about accepting what life gives you. And not questioning it."
Padukone laughs as she points out that Kapoor and she shouldn't be taken for pin-up models as cordial exes, even as you wonder aloud how his current girlfriend feels about the entire scenario.
"I don't care. Whoever he's dating, whoever he marries, she will have to deal with this. We share something special. There's nothing to feel threatened about; it's not that kind of an equation."
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