Parineeti Chopra is four films old and has made it a habit to walk away with immense appreciation. All that critical acclaim and commercial success, one would expect, has lent her some starry airs. But she surprises with the same self-effacing manner of speaking that she had during her debut film Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl and later with Ishaqzaade, Shuddh Desi Romance and Hasee Toh Phasee .
The disarming smile is intact and she appears forthright when she says, “It’s scary if I sit down and think about the reviews I’ve had for my films, but I am happy that in some small way I have earned the confidence of people. I wouldn’t have it any other way. If someone were to offer me a film in which my role is insignificant, I wouldn’t do it.”
She speaks to us before beginning a road trip or what she calls a food yatra with Aditya Roy Kapur to promote her new film and says, “I don’t want to get weighed down with what people expect me to do. But I am careful in choosing projects.”
Though she has worked with Habib Faisal in Ishaqzaade , she didn’t take on Daawat-e-Ishq blindly. “It’s great to work with a director who understands you because he can push you to perform better. But even Habib sir didn’t want me to take up the film without being convinced about it. He gave me the script, I went home and read it and really liked it. I had been playing edgy characters and was charmed by a simple, happy story,” she says.
Daawat-e-Ishq has her playing Gulrez, a girl from Hyderabad’s Old City. “With each character given to me, I try and understand where the person comes from, what influences her and how she would react to situations,” she says.
Flavours of Hyderabad
The unit shot in Hyderabad for a month and Parineeti observed girls from the city. “I felt they were no different from the girls in Mumbai. My character is not that of an orthodox Muslim girl, so my references weren’t from the Old City. Though Gulrez lives in the Old City, works at a mall near Hi-Tech City,” she says.
Don’t expect an overtly dakhni dialect like in Bobby Jasoos as this story shifts between Lucknow and Hyderabad. “A large chunk of the film has been shot in Hyderabad, especially the portions involving me and Anupam Kher who plays my father. To have a pan Indian appeal, my character doesn’t speak the dakhni dialect throughout. A slight twang is what she has when she speaks Hindi and Urdu,” says Parineeti.
A self-confessed foodie, she says the film has been made for a food lover like her. “I had a good excuse to indulge and wasn’t going to let go of it. I loved the biryani in Hyderabad and Tunde ki Kebab in Lucknow. I think Lucknow has the best kebabs in India,” she says.
Aditya plays a bawarchi from Lucknow and food takes the film forward. “We are talking about two people falling in love through food, so there was bound to be a lot of eating. After all that eating while shooting and promoting the film, I would go back and follow a strict regimen. I’ve been working towards getting fitter,” she says.
