It is a turnaround that has shocked many in the film industry and the media. From an incredibly politically correct actress, Deepika Padukone has suddenly become brutally honest. In the last few months she has taken on a media behemoth for using her unflattering picture with a titillating caption. Then she talked about how she faced depression at the height of success and then recently she gave her voice to a film which talks about freedom of choice for women without taking into account the responsibility factor. Each of these became a social media event and almost every feature writer proffered his or her two penny of advice through lengthy write-ups invoking everything from filmy logic to feminism.
“There is no calculation or strategy about what one does or says. What one does or says comes straight from the heart. I think the intention should always be right. You feel strongly about something, you say it,” says Deepika as we settle to discuss her version-2. Known to sound a little rehearsed she is refreshingly direct this time. “May be back then when you think I was political correct I didn’t have an opinion. May be I didn’t know any better. But may be today I have evolved as a person. May be I have a thought now and I express myself. It is not rocket science.” Indeed!
But the point is that insensitive cameras have been following her for a long time. Was the indignation building up inside her? “No, it was not a case of bottling up my feeling and then letting it out suddenly. Nor do I think it was spontaneous enough that I have to take back what I said. As I said there is no math or science to it,” she argues.
This brings us to “My Choice” video directed by Homi Adjania, responsible for taking Deepika out of a rut with rebellious characters in Cocktail and Finding Fanny . However, while the film talks about choice it is silent on the responsibility bit. Don’t choices and responsibility go together? “Absolutely! I don’t think the film talks about that. The film definitely doesn’t talk about the consequences. It only talks about the choices. Having said that it does not say at any point of time what is right and what is wrong. It doesn’t even tell you that these are your only choices and at no time it talks about the consequences of these choices. What was disappointing for me that people jumped to a conclusion that I endorsed certain things. I didn’t expect people to pull out certain lines instead of concentrating on the larger message that the film was trying to say. I myself had an issue with certain lines in the video. It is not that I was not aware of it. I didn’t go into it without knowing what it is all about. I was fully aware of what I was doing. I shared my concerns with the director. Having said that it was his creative piece and there was little I could do to change his vision but I continued with it because I agreed with the larger point about women empowerment that the film was trying to make.”
So what was it that didn’t pass the scanner of her sensibility? “I have never endorsed infidelity and I never will. Experiences in my personal life that people know of are a classic example of my stand on the subject. Marriage for me is a sacred institution and I completely believe in it. For me women empowerment is about equality and that’s the way I have been brought up. I have never believed that women empowerment is about one sex being superior or inferior.”
For now Piku is making news and the media is talking about the unlikely romantic chemistry between Irrfan and her. But Deepika sees the film differently. “It is not a romantic film at all. It is a quirky take on a father-daughter relationship. It is about the chaos in Piku’s life and how she multi-tasks to make a sense of it. Love is one of the aspects but it is not central to the story.”
With films being marketed by putting female leads in the centre, Deepika says these are definitely happy times for the industry and her. “The kind of the films being made reflect the evolution of the audience. It is a very exciting time for me as far as the kind of directors I am getting to work with and the kind of parts that I am being offered. Piku is a classic example.”
But she will continue to be part of glamorous spectacles like Happy New Year ? “To me there was nothing glamorous in my character in Happy New Year ,” she takes offence at the description. One tries to give her more suitable descriptions like glossy and superficial but Deepika counters, “In my mind I was playing the character of a Maharashtrian girl who aspires to be one of the best dancers in the world. In fact the word glamorous is being used very loosely. We always believe when an actor is playing character with fancy costumes and hair and make-up we consider it glamorous and superficial and hence can’t act. And the moment she removes the make-up and does a certain kind of film one tends to believe it is great acting.” But one liked her acting in Chennai Express . Deepika thanks but continues with her point of view. “The performance boils down to what the role demands. To me as an actor I never categorise films as glamorous and non-glamorous, big budget and small budget. I don’t make these compartments in my mind when I choose a film. The conviction and preparation that I give to each of my films irrespective of the clothes and the make-up is still the same. What you do in front of the camera doesn’t change whether you are doing a Finding Fanny or a Chennai Express ?” I don’t completely agree. Hope one day we would be able to discuss it.
