Call it coincidence, if you wish. When actor Gul Panag signed up for “Turning 30”, she was “just turning 30”. “And, the film was probably the most logical thing for me to do at that point of time,” she says.
So, how comfortable is she with her age? “I'm happy at 30; 30 is the new 20,” she quips. “Now, you have a lot more opportunities at 30 than when you were 20,” she insists.
Gul continues: “At 30, you know yourself a lot better, you are grounded, you know what you want to do in life. That makes you a far more interesting person to be with. Nobody wants to be with a person who is not sure of what she is or what she wants to do. Turning 30 means coming to terms about who you really are, what you stand for and what your real beliefs are.”
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Talking about “Turning 30”, Gul says director Alankrita Srivastava's vision was very similar to the kind of cinema she associates with. “It's a different matter that this film has turned out to be much bigger and much larger than what I had imagined it to be. But, we are on the same page when it comes to the kind of cinema that we identify with.”
Gul identifies urban Indian women as the primary audience of this film. “It is a film made for women, by women. In urban India, at 30, you are at a crisis point, because you have either made it in your career or you haven't. And, you can relate to my character, Naina. Any working girl who has been victim of office politics, who has been dumped by her boyfriend, whose friends are on her case to settle down, whose parents, especially her mother, is pressuring her to marry, will identify with Naina.”
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On a personal note, Gul says: “Naina is far more gutsy, bold and liberated than I am. She is not bound by a fake sense of morality.”
Ask Gul which among the three traits — ‘sexy, naughty, flirty' — in the film's tagline describe her best, and she laughs: “All three!”
The actor says she shares a great working relationship with Purab Kohli. “We have a similar outlook towards acting and the way we look at scenes. I really enjoyed working with him.”
Gul's other projects include the Pritish Nandy production, “A Rectangular Love Story”, and a film with Ram Gopal Verma.
Bollywood News Service