Sonam Kapoor's scan from Telegraph

After her 'big bong film' Aisha, Sonam Kapoor wants to be Charulata. A chat with the thinking young actress Sonam Kapoor

For all your admirers around, your tweeting has been like a breath of fresh air. What got you hooked?

It was, in fact, my mom who told me about Twitter a couple of months back and I got on to it like a month back. And already I think I have around 7,000 followers (she's wrong, she has almost 9,000). It's fun. You can update what you are doing. You can connect with your fans. I am yet to reply to a lot of people but I promise to do so, whenever I get time.

Time management must be tough given that you are working in two films simultaneously for the first time...

It's exhilarating but it's also exhausting. I don't know how people do it. I am very particular. I love doing readings. I do look tests. I do make-up tests. Because I enjoy the process. I like the pre-production part as much as I like the production part. Finding your voice, finding your chemistry with your actor, finding your chemistry with your director... you need to work things out.

You also write a back story for your characters! Tell us about it because we mostly know of actresses who go on the sets and ask for lines.

(Laughs out loud) I know! Firstly I sign on a film only when I enjoy the script and the character. It doesn't matter if my character is there for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or from the first frame to the last frame. There has to be an arc to the character, there must be a conflict and she must have something to say.

After that is done, I look at the timeline of the character. I usually get to play a maximum of two to five years of that character. But what has happened to her before that is what makes her what she is at the point the film starts. So I make up stories. Like with Delhi-6's Bittu, my story was that she must be a BA student, she would mostly have boyfriends because she already has her bua as her friend. She would love music and listen to all sorts of music, especially old Hindi film music.

And they come into play. In the Genda phool scene when all the women are cleaning the mirchis, I am sitting and helping my father with the kabootar. She doesn't want to be a homemaker and so I told Rakeysh (Omprakash Mehra) that she should rebel in these small, small ways. Deep down she wants to be a boy and wants to be independent... wants to have her own voice.

But do you believe in method acting? Will you start being Bittu in real life in the run-up to the shooting?

I am not a big fan of method acting even though it works for a lot of people. I only believe in the character when I am shooting. I don't believe in it before and after because that just messes up your mind, you know. It's a film at the end of the day and we are acting in it at the end of the day. And while I enjoy the process, I don't take it so seriously also. I work a lot on it... body language, voice, look... I also find songs for all my characters because that sets the mood of who that person is.

In that context, how would you describe Aisha, your next character, based on Jane Austen's Emma in Rajshree Ojha's film?

Aisha is obsessed with Audrey Hepburn. She is obsessed with Waheeda Rehman.

That sounds like you.... Isn't that convenient?

(Laughs) Ya but she is more obsessed with Hepburn than I am. I also like Katharine Hepburn, which Aisha wouldn't like. She will like Grace Kelly. She lost her mother at a very young age and so she loves the way her mom dressed. She would find Maharani Gayatri Devi very cool. She likes Coco Chanel. She has all these icons in her head. She is a very classic kind of a person, a classic heroine. She is a modern girl but has very classic tastes. If she dresses Indian, she will wear purely Indian... she wouldn't mix Indian and Western. She looks at the world very black and white.

What do you think of Abhay (Deol) as your man in the film?

Abhay and I have beautiful chemistry. It's very nice, different. My director is very excited about that.

Your director Rajshree Ojha has a very strong Calcutta connection having shot parts of her earlier film Chaurahein here...

I know! I know! Well, Rajshree is a true-blue Bong (she is a half-Bengali based in the US). And everybody in my office... whether it's the casting director or people in the costume department... are Bengali women. It's my big Bong film! And Bengali women are so strong and when they have an opinion about something, it's something (laughs)! So I told Rajshree that I have to do a Bengali film. She is like why? Because I believe only Bengali filmmakers can really make a woman-centric film. I don't know any filmmaker who has made a woman-centric film like a Bengali can. My dream is to do Charulata now. Somebody has to make Charulata.

But you are actually doing a Karan Johar film, directed by Punit Malhotra (Manish Malhotra's nephew)...

It is even completely opposite to Aisha. But Punit is an extremely hard working and intelligent person and he has written a very, very fresh script. It's a very fresh perspective on a love story. It's a nice and natural way of looking at two ordinary people falling in love. And it's fun. It's a comedy, even though it's slightly dark. I haven't yet met a director as specific as Punit. He knows exactly what he wants from all the characters. I have a very, very good feeling about I Hate Love Stories.

What we are most excited about is your pairing with Imran Khan...

Both of us have a very similar relationship off screen what they are trying to show on screen. And it happened very unconsciously. You know, the two of us are constantly bickering... all the time and it really works when you weave a story around it. He keeps pulling my leg for what reason I don't understand. But it will be a lot of fun. It's me like you have not seen before.

And tell us about the Mont Blanc ad you shot with your father (Anil Kapoor)...

It was his first ever ad!

This is one department where you have completely outscored him...

Ya (laughs)! I am doing three endorsements this year... so it's kinda cool! But it was lovely working with my father. Our first time. It didn't feel like father and daughter at all during the shoot. It was incredible. Now I know what the hype about my father is all about. He is the best actor in the country but no one talks about how brilliant he is on the sets. He is so on the ball and he never gets the pace out of his head. For me it was so easy to work with him. We were doing like one take two takes... it was just lovely, just lovely.

-Pratim D. Gupta

http://www.sonam-kapoor.net/article.php/2009/08/30/lady-in-red.html