All set for the release of her next film “Sukhmani- Hope of Life”, Bollywood siren Divya Dutta is as pleased as punch with the way life is unfolding for her. Having been in the industry for a decade now, Divya talks about her journey thus far, the slew of projects she has lined up and what she hopes for in the year 2010.
In a telephonic chat, Divya elucidates on what her upcoming film is about. She says: “Manjeet Maan's Punjabi venture, ‘Sukhmani' is a movie that shows the audience that goodness resides in each one of us and this goodness isn't something that goes unnoticed. Although it is a simple story, I like it because nothing about it is pretentious.”
In “Sukhmani”, Divya plays a Kashmiri woman who has a tragic past. “My character is a woman of few words, which is quite unlike who I am in real life. So it was quite challenging to shun the talkative me whenever I was shooting my scenes,” she quips.
Anyone who's watched the Aircel ads that Divya has been part of is bound to find it unusual to see Divya speak so little, relatively!
On working with Juhi Chawla, Divya exclaims: “It felt so good to act with one of my favourite actors! We got along like a house on fire because we're both so chatty. We would chill out together after our shoots in Kashmir. We visited the Dal Lake together and quite often we would dig into pakodas, sip some hot chai and just crack up thinking of something funny.”
“Working with Gurdas Maan has been a wonderful experience. He is a simple person and is good fun,” Divya adds.
Learning new language
Ask her why she invariably happens to be a part of Punjabi projects such as “Shaheed-e-Mohabbat”, “Des Hoyeaa Pardes” as well as “Waris Shah: Ishq da Waris” and Divya says: “In my 10 years of being a part of Bollywood, I have donned different roles. It's probably just coincidence that some of my films were Punjabi.”
Divya seems to do well with roles that expect her to learn new dialects. There was “Dilli 6” in which she spoke Haryanvi fluently. Then of course she's been a part of films in which she's played a Guajarati and a Rajasthani. But Divya says her directors don't cast her in such roles because they think she's good with languages but because they see her as someone who fits the role perfectly.
The Bollywood beauty has already hopped onto the Hollywood bandwagon. Divya has got Jennifer Lynch's “Hissss” and Fred Homeland's “Heart Land”. While the former is a thriller, the latter is a light-hearted comedy.
Then there is another Hollywood movie which she isn't allowed to talk about yet.
