B reak Ke Baad is in theatres and Deepika Padukone seems to be coming out of her shell of a glam doll, slowly but surely. Isn't the role a little too close to Meera, the character she played in “Love Aaj Kal”, who was confused about love and commitment? “Broadly, it is on the same lines but if you look closely Meera was a lot more mature about relationships. Here Aliya learns about commitment through the course of the film. To me she comes across as selfish and a little too much career driven. I would not have done it if it hadn't had a different layer to what I have already done. Meera was a lot closer to my real self, Aliya is not.”
In a sense the film's title suggests her real state of life, as she is going through a period of break-up after her relationship with Ranbir Kapoor ended. “Like I said, the character and the real me are completely different. I shared it with the media when I was in the relationship thinking now they won't ask anything more. But this didn't happen. So I shut up.”
Of late, we are seeing a new Deepika, somebody who is no longer politically correct to a fault and a little too candid on talk shows. “Political correctness was just a media perception. It's not that I have changed or I am trying to make a point. I always had this side…I open up sometimes.”
We are talking about the Karan Johar show where she made remarks on Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif. She said she wanted her ex-boyfriend to endorse a brand of contraceptives and that she wanted to see Kaif's passport. “It was in good humour and I expect people who felt offended to develop a sense of humour. In Karan's show you are expected to entertain, and that's what I was trying to do by giving funny answers. It was not that we had planned it. It was all impromptu,” clarifies Deepika.
After working with “seniors” like Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar, finally Deepika got to work with an actor of her age group. “Working with Imran (Khan) was fun. He was very supportive in keeping the spontaneity going in some of the difficult scenes.”
Aren't we churning out a lot of romantic comedies? “I believe this is what the young audience wants. As a viewer I don't mind the genre as long as the core is real.”
Meanwhile, Deepika's experiment continues, as will be seen in Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Ashutosh Gowarikar's period film on the Chittagong uprising.
“If you compare the two films, I will say Aliya was a more difficult character to play as she is something I am not. Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey might be a period film but I can think like Kalpana Dutta, who is a spirited and feisty character. Also in non-fiction, you can't make thinks overtly dramatic. As for the look, you know Ashutosh takes care of all the minor details like how many bangles Kalpana would wear or not wear and the kind of saris she must have preferred. The actor's job becomes a lot easier.”
Some critics feel she is a little too modern to play characters rooted in middle-class reality. Lafangey Pardiney is an example where many felt she didn't go all out to embrace the character. “I didn't want to present a caricature of the blind girl. Also, the girl had a wannabe mentality. She wanted to rise to the next level and perhaps that's why she did not behave like others around her. But yes, I have to accept there must be some fault as the film didn't do well at the box office.”
