Excerpts from her recent Filmfare interview. For full interview, click link at the end of the post.
Right from the beginning of your career, you’ve experienced massive success. do you think that Raji has given you pan-Indian success?
Yes, I was surprised at the amount of love and appreciation that came from the North. I’ve always worked in the South and I expected my fans to react to it but I was extremely pleased and humbled at the immense appreciation I’ve received from throughout the country. It just inspires me to work harder.
You’ve completed around 11 years in the film industry and we’ve noticed that you have been getting experimental with your film choices...
(Laughs) I’ve always been brave but I’m only realising it over the past few years. It’s sort of become like an addiction to just push and push and push to do better and work harder. It’s like an adrenaline rush for me to do better and challenge myself and show myself what I’m truly capable of.
Shaakuntalam is one of our most loved poems and you’re playing the lead role in this.
(Laughs) Oh my god! Okay no pressure, no pressure. I have always liked choosing films that are completely different from my previous work. Shakuntalam is the extreme opposite, the other side of the spectrum from Raji. Every shot is perfect, every frame is a painting. I had to look the most beautiful that I’ve ever looked! So that pressure was there. It was fascinating. I’ve always been obsessed with mythology, period dramas, and this princess world. I really loved my dream role with Shaakuntalam. I’ve been a Disney fan all my life and Shaakuntalam is everything I could have wished for. In some shots, I can’t believe that’s me... actually, in a lot of shots I can’t believe it’s me! The team has done such a fantastic job from production design, costumes, lighting, and makeup. I just had to show up.
How did you approach the character - this woman who was born of an apsara and a sage...
With all my work, it’s not like I know what I’m going to do before I do it. Even with The Family Man and Raji, I was absorbing what the director was telling me or what I was watching online. I don’t decide what I’m going to do when they say ‘action’. I never do that. At the same time, after they say ‘cut’, if you ask me to relive the scene I can’t do it. For me, everything happens between ‘action’ and ‘cut’. But I do absorb when someone is narrating a script, watching them narrate it, watching Neeta Lulla talk about her costumes. I read up on Shaakuntalam though. (Laughs) I don’t know, something happens when
the director calls ‘action!’ But I did work on my physicality a lot for this film, I think although the original Shakuntala didn’t really have six-pack abs but I did work a lot on my physicality because there were a lot of beautiful clothes that were being put on me and I wanted to be the perfect mannequin for them. I worked on myself to make sure those clothes looked good on me. So I wasn’t concentrating on sucking in my stomach and delivering my dialogue. That was the main focus - that I looked comfortable in those clothes. It often happens, when you show your midriff, you suck your stomach in and deliver your dialogue and that looks extremely awkward on-screen. I didn’t want that to happen. Once I went there, I dived right into the fairytale.
Have you given serious thought to doing more Hindi projects?
Oh yes, I have said it before that initially I was intimidated because I was just finding my bearing in the South and getting a grip on the kind of films that work here and those that don’t. Now, with all the appreciation for The Family Man, it has given me more confidence to spread my wings and accept more challenges, whatever the language may be. So I’m definitely open to them right now.
Looking back at your career, is there any character or film you would have done differently?
Oh, so many. There’s a chunk of five years, I wish I could take back. So many of my films are shown on TV and I immediately turn off the TV. I don’t watch myself on screen.
Tell us about a look that you carried which you now wish you hadn’t.
Early on in my career, maybe 11 or 12 years ago, I did not know that I was wearing a rip-off of a designer. I really wish I hadn’t done that. (Laughs) I think it was Shehlaa Khan. At that point, I didn’t know anything about designers or designer wear. It was probably my first or second public appearance. So yeah, that was a baaaaad choice.
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