Dimple Kapadia and Homi Adjania have a mutual admiration society. The two are egging each other and having a colorful banter about another cast member from their film Finding Fanny when I step in to the room. Dimple, whose daughter Twinkle has mentioned her mother in her weekly column, tells me. “You know, Twinkle had written something funny which is missing from the article. She had written I went home to have lunch with my mother and she was having lunch with her friend Honey and then they called their friend Bubble, so now you know how I got named Twinkle!.”
In the course of the interview she also tells me why she can’t see herself the social networking world, an why she is now open to working on TV. Excerpts…
Your third film with Homi after Being Cyrus and Cocktail, you really love him don’t you ?
Yes, I absolutely love Homi! When he came to me with Being Cyrus, I didn’t know him. After I worked with him I realised he’s as an excellent actor too, apart from being an excellent director. For me, an actor is a sum total of his memories, his visions, and the experiences he’s had so far. Actors live in their own world, what Homi does is, brings his own world into yours, and that is exciting. That’s why all his characters are so rich. He’s a brilliant writer. When I was doing Cocktail he narrated the Fanny role to me and I love his work so much that there was no way I was going to give up on this part.
Tell me about the generation gap between the cast of Finding Fanny..
There are stalwarts like Pankajji and Naseer and the relatively new Deepika and Arjun. There was this huge generation difference in the cast, but I think that made it so much more exciting. I don’t’ know what Deepika, wants to do! Get a Master in acting or what ? (laughs), I mean you have already done it! But no seriously she’s excellent, she’s so focused, so hard working. I have seen her on the sets going through her dialogues, reading the script, preparing for the next day, it’s wonderful to see her go that extra mile. She has this hunger to take her character one notch higher, that’s amazing.
Did you get a chance to rag Arjun ?
I tried to rag him, but then I saw his work and I was like ‘hello’, be careful this guy is going to have you for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Arjun is uncontrolled, very spontaneous, and very raw. He’s also not somebody that you can like instantly. Arjun grows on you and that’s the wonderful part about him. You slowly keep discovering him and he’s a lovely boy. He has a wicked sense of humor and he’s great fun.
What are the kind of roles that you reject on the daily..
The regular crap, the always crying and moaning mother. I can’t do that anymore. It’s not exciting at all. Also because I have done many emotional Films early on in my career, so I am looking for interesting characters to play, and characters that will make me shudder before I do them. Because those kind of roles make me push myself into a certain direction which is scary, yet exciting.
What’s your take on the ‘There aren’t enough roles being written for women’ argument ?
I believe that there was never any dearth of roles for women. Roles were bad in the 70′s and 80′s, before that there were female oriented films. How the hell did you have a Meena Kumari, or a Nargis? So don’t tell me that films are being written for women only now. There were plenty back in the day. In the 70′s and 80′s we had Madras take over so we had six songs and five fights happening till the late 80′s. Then again the era of films for women came back, I myself have done so many such films. Obviously at 50 plus, I am not going to be getting a woman oriented role likeMary Kom, but you still get roles that are good. So I don’t know what we are equating it with. Women have been the lives of so many movies, take them out and you have nothing.
Would you ever get on social media to connect with your fans ?
Not at all, why the hell should I share my life with strangers and put up stuff like ‘ eating, and farting!’ I mean who the hell are you talking to? I am sorry, but this is my take on it. Why does the world need to know I have taken a flight and am sitting in the flight! How does it matter to me that I will write something and some one will read it ? If you have something of some substance to write, some poetry, fiction or something that will enlighten people go ahead and do it, but not this crap!
Are you open to doing television ?
I would definitely consider TV if the project and role is exciting. But I would obviously have my own way of working, I cannot work like other people. At one point of time I had discarded the idea completely, but now I just might take it up.