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Anushka Sharma's double life The actor, who turned producer for the next film she acts in, on the tough job of of being normal'
Sanjukta Sharma
Stardom is a mercurial business. And an unavoidably public one. Her lips aren't the best way to start a piece on the talented and beautiful actor Anushka Sharma, but the cosmetically plumped lips are inescapable if we are to understand her stardom. It's a stardom built on a foundation of solid acting work, but incomplete without the gift of plastic beauty.
Her public appearances after the lip enhancement got her attention, even taunts and some phoney feminist critiques in the media. "She is a good actor, already pretty, why a lip job?""that seemed to be the consensus. Sharma is waifish and porcelain-skinned, her straight hair in hues of brown; her physical look more manufactured than, perhaps, what it was seven years ago"about 20, and in a big-ticket debut opposite Shah Rukh Khan, a superstar older than her by at least 20 years, in Yash Raj Films' Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Sharma's screen presence was electric. Two years later, continuing a three-film agreement that she signed with Yash Raj Films, her "middle-class, north Indian girl" IPO matured with Band Baaja Baaraat (2010). Her Shruti Kakkar was a personification of adrenalin that, Hindi cinema would make us believe, is Punjabi womanhood. One thing was clear after that film: Sharma is not a bimbo; she can act. Her five roles thereafter have cemented that persona, stripped of feminine docility on one hand, and nuance on the other. Vishal Bhardwaj gave Sharma her most complex role, Bijlee in Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013), and Rajkumar Hirani gave her probably the most watched role, Jagat Janani in last year's PK. Tabloids have reported she will be seen in her first item number in Zoya Akhtar's fothcoming film, Dil Dhadakne Do.
It is a short, predictable arc. Among India's new heroines, all known to take calculated risks and yet not lose sight of the mainstream orbit, Sharma is quite firmly entrenched. She has tried hard to mould herself according to conventional beauty paradigms, and also found roles that demand her to act. In Navdeep Singh's forthcoming film Nh10, Sharma is producer as well as the lead actor alongside the talented Neil Bhoopalam, an actor with a small body of film work but disciplined in serious theatre. Sharma plays Meera, the girlfriend of Arjun (Bhoopalam), both professionals who live in Gurgaon. While driving on the National Highway 10 (NH 10), which incidentally passes through Haryana"Bahadurgarh, Rohtak, Hisar, Fatehabad, Sirsa"and ends at the Pakistan border in Punjab, they encounter a violent kidnapping of a young girl. They get involved, and gruesome realities confront them first hand. It changes the course of their holiday, and also their lives.
Singh, who has previously directed the inventive noir thriller Manorama Six Feet Under (2007), approached Sharma with the script. Sharma says he won her over.
After cheering for her boyfriend, cricketer Virat Kohli, when India played Australia in early January in Melbourne, Sharma is in Mumbai to promote Nh10. We meet for a brief interview at her penthouse in the hyper-filmy suburb, Versova. Her living room has pop art, elegant upholstery in muted colours, and towering doors made of dark wood. Publicists outnumber journalists in the "interview op", a routine, time-saving publicity method these days"interviewers wait for their 20-minute turn with the star interviewee. Sharma has calculated, seemingly prepared answers about the film she is promoting. "There was no doubt in Navdeep's mind about how he saw the character of Meera. He was crystal clear about the entire film"from scenes to the overall tone, everything. I agreed almost immediately to do it. And then I decided to come on board as one of the film's many producers (she owns a production house along with her brother) because often producers don't want to put their money on films like these," Sharma says. It required her to be more real than all the other realistic films she has done, she says, although being producer never really helped when it came to acting. "It was also physically gruelling," she adds.
2015 ought to be Sharma's year. PK gave her wide reach. Nh10 is firmly in the mould of rigorous indie. Her role in Bombay Velvet, Anurag Kashyap's ambitious period drama of which we so far have seen a brawny Ranbir Kapoor and reedy-backed Anushka Sharma carrying a tonne of flowing green garment, and which releases on 15 May, is that of a jazz singer in early 20th century Bombay. "I know nothing of that world. Anurag gave me music to listen to, but it is very improvised and I am part of this sort of grand design in the film. It is visually an unparalleled film in India," Sharma says.
Sharma has been working hard since she was 15. Raised in Bengaluru, her father was in the army and mother is a housewife. After she completed her first modelling assignment, there was no looking back. "But I ensured I did well in academics so nobody told my parents Your daughter is just a model'. It is so common in middle-class families to consider modelling and acting not serious," she says.
The move to Mumbai, and a fortuitous first meeting with producer-director Aditya Chopra led her to stardom. Now she has two lives, she says. One is the personal space and the other her work, and the two hardly collide. "I have no illusion of being an icon to young girls or anybody. I have never emulated any star or celebrity completely and I hope nobody does the same of me," she says. After seven years in the Hindi film world, she is convinced heroines don't get paid as much as male stars because they can't unite on an issue. "There is no unity, it is either rivalry or fake friendships. One actress can't challenge or change anything."
Nh10 releases in theatres on 13 March.
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/G8SIWUJ7MPmP9a8jqjedPM/The-double-life-of-Anushka-Sharma.html
Sanjukta Sharma
Stardom is a mercurial business. And an unavoidably public one. Her lips aren't the best way to start a piece on the talented and beautiful actor Anushka Sharma, but the cosmetically plumped lips are inescapable if we are to understand her stardom. It's a stardom built on a foundation of solid acting work, but incomplete without the gift of plastic beauty.
Her public appearances after the lip enhancement got her attention, even taunts and some phoney feminist critiques in the media. "She is a good actor, already pretty, why a lip job?""that seemed to be the consensus. Sharma is waifish and porcelain-skinned, her straight hair in hues of brown; her physical look more manufactured than, perhaps, what it was seven years ago"about 20, and in a big-ticket debut opposite Shah Rukh Khan, a superstar older than her by at least 20 years, in Yash Raj Films' Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Sharma's screen presence was electric. Two years later, continuing a three-film agreement that she signed with Yash Raj Films, her "middle-class, north Indian girl" IPO matured with Band Baaja Baaraat (2010). Her Shruti Kakkar was a personification of adrenalin that, Hindi cinema would make us believe, is Punjabi womanhood. One thing was clear after that film: Sharma is not a bimbo; she can act. Her five roles thereafter have cemented that persona, stripped of feminine docility on one hand, and nuance on the other. Vishal Bhardwaj gave Sharma her most complex role, Bijlee in Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013), and Rajkumar Hirani gave her probably the most watched role, Jagat Janani in last year's PK. Tabloids have reported she will be seen in her first item number in Zoya Akhtar's fothcoming film, Dil Dhadakne Do.
It is a short, predictable arc. Among India's new heroines, all known to take calculated risks and yet not lose sight of the mainstream orbit, Sharma is quite firmly entrenched. She has tried hard to mould herself according to conventional beauty paradigms, and also found roles that demand her to act. In Navdeep Singh's forthcoming film Nh10, Sharma is producer as well as the lead actor alongside the talented Neil Bhoopalam, an actor with a small body of film work but disciplined in serious theatre. Sharma plays Meera, the girlfriend of Arjun (Bhoopalam), both professionals who live in Gurgaon. While driving on the National Highway 10 (NH 10), which incidentally passes through Haryana"Bahadurgarh, Rohtak, Hisar, Fatehabad, Sirsa"and ends at the Pakistan border in Punjab, they encounter a violent kidnapping of a young girl. They get involved, and gruesome realities confront them first hand. It changes the course of their holiday, and also their lives.
Singh, who has previously directed the inventive noir thriller Manorama Six Feet Under (2007), approached Sharma with the script. Sharma says he won her over.
After cheering for her boyfriend, cricketer Virat Kohli, when India played Australia in early January in Melbourne, Sharma is in Mumbai to promote Nh10. We meet for a brief interview at her penthouse in the hyper-filmy suburb, Versova. Her living room has pop art, elegant upholstery in muted colours, and towering doors made of dark wood. Publicists outnumber journalists in the "interview op", a routine, time-saving publicity method these days"interviewers wait for their 20-minute turn with the star interviewee. Sharma has calculated, seemingly prepared answers about the film she is promoting. "There was no doubt in Navdeep's mind about how he saw the character of Meera. He was crystal clear about the entire film"from scenes to the overall tone, everything. I agreed almost immediately to do it. And then I decided to come on board as one of the film's many producers (she owns a production house along with her brother) because often producers don't want to put their money on films like these," Sharma says. It required her to be more real than all the other realistic films she has done, she says, although being producer never really helped when it came to acting. "It was also physically gruelling," she adds.
2015 ought to be Sharma's year. PK gave her wide reach. Nh10 is firmly in the mould of rigorous indie. Her role in Bombay Velvet, Anurag Kashyap's ambitious period drama of which we so far have seen a brawny Ranbir Kapoor and reedy-backed Anushka Sharma carrying a tonne of flowing green garment, and which releases on 15 May, is that of a jazz singer in early 20th century Bombay. "I know nothing of that world. Anurag gave me music to listen to, but it is very improvised and I am part of this sort of grand design in the film. It is visually an unparalleled film in India," Sharma says.
Sharma has been working hard since she was 15. Raised in Bengaluru, her father was in the army and mother is a housewife. After she completed her first modelling assignment, there was no looking back. "But I ensured I did well in academics so nobody told my parents Your daughter is just a model'. It is so common in middle-class families to consider modelling and acting not serious," she says.
The move to Mumbai, and a fortuitous first meeting with producer-director Aditya Chopra led her to stardom. Now she has two lives, she says. One is the personal space and the other her work, and the two hardly collide. "I have no illusion of being an icon to young girls or anybody. I have never emulated any star or celebrity completely and I hope nobody does the same of me," she says. After seven years in the Hindi film world, she is convinced heroines don't get paid as much as male stars because they can't unite on an issue. "There is no unity, it is either rivalry or fake friendships. One actress can't challenge or change anything."
Nh10 releases in theatres on 13 March.
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/G8SIWUJ7MPmP9a8jqjedPM/The-double-life-of-Anushka-Sharma.html
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