‘I’m all for seduction. Bring it on’

You aren’t unknown to the global film festival circuit. What, according to you, sets Cannes apart from other festivals?
What I love about festivals is the opportunity to watch the best films from around the world. This time at Cannes, I was invited to be on the jury of a few international festivals, and to be the official programmer for another. That would be more fun than the adulation I get as an exotic actress. But what’s beautiful about Cannes, other than the all-important business aspect, is that it is truly a public celebration—people pour in from all over the world to soak up these two weeks. And it has a tremendous appetite for beauty. Everyone on the street is dying to be enchanted.  

Tell us about your character in Rang Rasiya, Raja Ravi Varma’s muse Sugandha.
She is a playful and innocent child-woman, a sensuous Devadasi and an angelic figure. Ravi Varma sees in her the face and soul of a goddess — and for the first time ever, Sugandha feels truly embraced. Her life changes when she enters the world of his imagination—she musters the courage to break the norms of her time. I loved every aspect of preparing for this role—wearing Navwari saris, absorbing the body language drawn into Ravi Varma’s art, rediscovering our classical heroines like Shakuntala, Damayanti, Urvashi, Sita, Draupadi and Menaka, who Sugandha posed as. Sugandha’s life mirrors the trials these women lived through.

Apparently, Madhuri Dixit was the first choice for the role. How was it stepping into her shoes?
Madhuri, whom I’ve always adored, wasn’t approached for Rang Rasiya. I believe she was attached to another film on Ravi Varma that never got made, by a different director.  I was blessed that right from the start, Ketan was confident he wanted me to play Sugandha—and I didn’t give him the chance to have a second choice.

Are you interested in art? What did you learn about Indian art and Raja Ravi Varma through the film?
I’ve always been drawn to paintings and poetry. I’m a disastrous painter and only a slightly better poet though. My favourites are Frida Kahlo, Amedeo Modigliani (incidentally, I played his muse Beatrice, on the New York stage), Matisse, Chagall, Hussein, Amrita Shergill, Ravi Varma, and Jatin Das. You know the strangest coincidence? When Ketan and Deepa came to my flat for the first time, they were stunned to see two life-size reproductions of Ravi Varma’s paintings on my walls. I’ve been looking at the face of the woman I was to play for as long as I’ve been in Bombay. We unknowingly create our destiny, don’t we?

How was it working with Ketan Mehta? How is Rang Rasiya different from his other period biopics Sardar and The Rising?
Ketan and I have wanted to work together for years and Deepa has always been a friend and mentor. They make a great team. To work with both was sublime. I’ve loved Ketan’s films since I was a child. I’ve seen all of them. Rang Rasiya is undoubtedly one of Ketan’s best, and one of the most powerful films of our times, anywhere in the world.

Given your record, is it a conscious decision to stay away from mainstream, commercial Bollywood? Or is it mutual disinterest?
Labels such as mainstream/offbeat, commercial/arthouse are fast becoming obsolete. There are films that work, and films that don’t and I’ve done both. My decisions are always emotional, not strategic —some are mistakes, some breakthroughs.  It’s true I wouldn’t suit every Bollywood film and vice-versa, but there are directors here I’ve always wanted to work with—Mani Ratnam, Ashutosh Gowariker, Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Basu… Where is the disinterest? Perhaps, just an unrequited love. Time will tell. 

Has there been a difference between the way international cinema has received you and the way Bollywood (which is mostly indifferent to the world outside it) has, considering you are Amartya Sen’s daughter?
Our industry is changing fast. It’s aware of and inspired by global cinema these days. But yes, at first I did face the attitude, how can an intelligent girl from a literate family be in films? Which doesn’t say much for the self-image of our industry, does it? But no big deal. Our business is full of challenges for everyone; breaking that misconception was my personal adventure.

From Seducing Maarya to Strangers and now Rang Rasiya, the enchantress-seductress seems to be your preferred role. Comment.
Ah! (laughs) I don’t cast myself in these roles, do I? But I’m delighted to have played them. Maarya, Preity, and Sugandha are poles apart from each other, all enchantresses but each unique.  After all, cinema is the most seductive medium and we actors are hired to seduce the audiences. So yes, I’m all for seduction. Bring it on.

What are your upcoming releases and the films you are working on?
I’m excited about three other releases, besides Rang Rasiya. The Forest, a Hollywood eco-thriller directed by Ashwin Kumar casts me as a tough-talking, tender-hearted city chick with a gun; Sharpe’s Peril, a British action adventure I just completed has me as a 19th century Indian princess who loves to ride horses and fights with Sean Bean; and The World Unseen, a South African period romance in which I play a rebel who chooses forbidden love and is brutally hunted by the police.
The next few weeks will be busy with the shoot of Zindabad, a political satire by Anubhav Sinha and Anil Chaudhary, in which I play an idealistic, young reporter who believes she can change the world— and grows up in just one day.