Here are the excerpts from Parineeti Chopra and Ayushmann Kurrana's interview with Film Companion's Anupama Chopra:
When I look at the two of you, it seems to me that you are Bollywood’s quintessential boy and girl-next-door. Ashish Patil at YRF said about you, Ayushmann, that you are the ‘coolest guy in the group, but not so cool that dost nahi bana sakte ’. You two feel like potential dosts to the audience. But how do you maintain this quality, sort of being approachable, accessible and relatable even as you both pursue full-blown Bollywood stardom?
Ayushmann Khurrana: I guess, coming from the outside, retaining a sense of your original self is very important. I’m a rooted guy, I’m a desi guy from Chandigarh and was a part of a youth channel. I evolved into a cool guy somehow. I was very desi when I came to Bombay for the first time in 2007. I think it’s also a part of evolution that you meet different people. I was not a very cosmopolitan guy, but I think I’m changing over the years, but at the same time the core is very desi , very approachable.
But for you, Parineeti, the conversation in the last fifteen months or so, has been all about the makeover - the weight loss and the image change. Did you ever wonder that the unique spark that made you so attractive on screen, like ‘our girl on screen’, that you would lose that?
Parineeti Chopra: No, and a lot of people ask me that. A lot of people ask me why did I do this ‘makeover’ and I don’t like that word. [People ask me] did you have any fears; did you fear you are going to lose your fans because they liked you ‘bubbly’ and ‘chubby’? – these words that I hate.
I think I was somehow agreeing with the audience whenever they were giving me flak about my weight, my dressing sense, how I look- even my work ethic was staggering, if I may say so. I didn’t have the stamina to work full hours, I wasn’t motivated. After a point I was like ‘I don’t want the camera’. I was losing that excitement that I had in the first year, and that break was very important. Now I feel like I’m doing my best work. Every day I feel I’m so charged and motivated only because of the ten month break that I could take. Somehow, because my personality has not changed, they’re just seeing a fitter me so I didn’t feel that I would lose the fans. I don’t think I have, I think I’m fine. I think they still like me.
It was important. I know I can wear better clothes today, I can experiment and take risks and as a twenty-eight-year-old I want to do all that. I want to wear a pair of shorts, if I go on a holiday I want to wear a bikini. I want to all those things as a young girl, and I wasn’t able to do that. Being overweight and unfit was a twelve-year-old struggle that I just had to end. I had to move on from that phase of my life, so I’m very glad that I did.
For the full interview, click here
