She is perhaps the youngest Mumbai based actress who has been lucky enough to make her foray in a Danny Boyle film abroad with aplomb and win accolades for her immaculate performance.
She has made her debut with Slumdog Millionaire in which her co-actors are top notch actors of the caliber of Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan.
When I meet this chirpy actress at a Café Coffee Day outlet in Malad where she stays, Freida Pinto told me at the outset that she has not at all learnt acting formally, though she has now decided that she would opt for a career in acting. "I had registered with the elite Modelling Agency as a model after I had passed out from my college. It was after I anchored for a travel show called Full Circle for the channel Zee International that I received a call from Loveleen Tandon to audition for Danny Boyle for his film Slumdog Millionaire".
Freida confesses that she had heard of Danny Boyle when she went for the audition. "I had seen Train Spotting which was a cult film of Danny Boyle, who had also made the career of Ewan McGregor. I was glad when Danny himself took my audition along with Loveleen."
What is the role that you are playing in Slumdog Millionaire? I ask Freida. "I play an eighteen year old girl who is brought up in the Mumbai slums and undergoes a harsh life and is in a painful situation after losing her love. She begins as a stubborn girl who wants love and acceptance because she is an orphan. What I liked about the character that I play in the film is that she becomes a mature girl even by the time she turns 14. Eventually she turns into a submissive girl."
Freida tells me that Slumdog millionaire is a completely Indian story. "I play an Indian girl in an Indian story. The film is a foreign perspective to an Indian story. I play the role of Latika. The film is not based on the book Q& A written by Vikas Swaroop but has been imbibed by the concept of the book. Simon Beaufuoy has adapted Q&A into his own conception as Slumdog Millionaire."
According to Freida, the title of the film is most appropriate because it is the story of an underdog and his struggle, rising out of adversity. Dev Patel plays the title role of the Slumdog Millionaire. "The character that I play in the film is docile and submissive. I play it low though in real life I am quite a fiery and animated girl. I play a simple girl who is believable in Indian costumes."
Freida confesses that she had become very empathic to a lot of situations around her after she acted in the film. "Earlier I used to take everything about life for granted. Acting in the film changed me a lot. I found Danny to be very humble and down to earth though one expected him to be egoistic. What is the best about Danny as a director is that as a director he makes it a point to make his actors comfortable."
Though she did not learn acting when she was acting in the film, Freida says that she made it a point to learn a lot about theater related acting from Barry John. "Thanks to what I learnt from Barry, I learnt how to connect with myself. I learnt that understanding yourself is the base for everything in life, after I learnt acting from Barry John."
Freida admits that she does not have a Godfather or a filmy background, though she had always wanted to get an outlet for her creativity. "I have modeled for Skoda, Femina etc and my biggest break was the travel show Full Circle that I did for Zee International. I am lucky I have been able to see most of the South East Asian countries in the world. As a model I have gone to various places in the world like Fiji, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Afghanistan."
Frieda is pragmatic when it comes to exposure in films as an actress. "If it is only to excite the public, I am not at all ready to expose but if the role demands it and the character that I am offered justifies exposure, I am game for exposure. Like Nandita Das did in Fire, Seema Biswas did in Bandit Queen or for that matter Nandana Sen has now done it in Rang Rasiya."
Freida also adds in the same breath that she would not say that she is absolutely comfortable for exposure because the perception of people here of Indian girls is different. What was considered vulgar yesterday is being done tastefully now. However at the same time, I also have no qualms to confess that I am too skinny now to carry off myself in a bikini".
--- SAMPURN
