“I don’t have that bubbly image anymore. Those kind of offers don’t come. Maybe I have just outgrown them” - JUHI CHAWLA INTERVIEW

Effervescent Juhi Chawla may not have retained her bubbly Juhi sobriquet. But she certainly wants to continue doing evocative roles – the kinds, which attaches a label of a mature actress. That explains why she didn’t think twice before playing the deglamourised documentary filmmaker in Teen Deewarein. And she has no qualms doing a cameo in Deepak Tijori’s second directorial undertaking Khamosh – Khauff Ki Raat, as long as, her characters “bring about important consequences in the film.”

This swing of alternative from lead to character roles is explicable as she tries striking a balance between family and films. Draped in a dull burgundy and cream saree that makes her look older, Chawla does show traces of mystification as we get her talking about her career on the sets of Khamosh…

What makes the chirpy girl of the 90s suddenly get Khamosh?
I don’t have that bubbly image anymore. Those kind of offers don’t come. Maybe I have just outgrown them. After all, the audiences like love stories, for which you need younger stars. So a natural choice for me is performance-oriented roles. My role in Khamosh is one of those. My director has asked me not to tell you anything about my character, so I will be tight-lipped. But it brings about some extremely important twists and turns in the film.

Your role is supposed to be a cameo…
Umm… okay, you could call it so. I am shooting only for six days. In that sense, my role is short… maybe a cameo. Which means, I am not in the film from start to end. No, actually I am there from the beginning to the closing. Well, I don’t know how to describe it. But my role sets the pace for the story.

Shilpa Shetty, we know, plays a high society escort. Is she the first lead then?
There are a lot of other characters in the film. Someone is a high society escort, someone is a cop… All of them are equally important, no one is the hero or heroine per se. It’s about how a certain incident affects the lives of all characters. Shilpa Shetty obviously has a very important role, which I believe must be getting good footage too.

It could be said, you are being very selective about the kind of roles you do. Why did you take up this one?
This role… because Deepak (Tijori) came up to me with the script. After the narration session, I realised I had not done such a role ever. It’s very interesting, though I can’t tell you what it is. Anyway Deepak and I knew each other since quite a few years. I had done some film with him in the past, though I don’t remember the name now. Of course when he came with the script this time, I must admit we met after ages. But in any case, I found this idea very interesting.

Another thing you seem to have found exciting is the Punjabi film industry…
(Smiles). Don’t call it Punjabi film industry. They are films which you find interesting. I am doing Des Hoya Pardes directed by Manoj Punj, who did Shaheed-e-Mohabbat Buta Singh. Gurdas Mann is my co-star. We play a couple that has to go through a lot of turmoil, thanks to both the police and the anti-social elements. The film will be made in English too, with the version being called Political Asylum.

After almost a year, you are back in business. Nice to get busy again, isn’t it?
Actually I have been busy all along. Just that I hadn’t been doing films since about eighteen months. But acting is not the only thing I do. I have a family, two very small kids… I need to give them time. Also I was doing my bit for our production house. All that anyway left me with very little time for myself. Of course being back with three-four films again is quite nice. I was a little nervous when I started shooting for debutante Eshaan’s Sapna Hai -- now called Dekhna Na Bhule, after a long gap. But after the first shot I was okay.

Looks like you are planning to re-enter the industry in full-swing…
Not really. I just have Khamosh, My Brother Nikhil and Dekhna Na Bhule co-starring Irrfan Khan. That’s it for now. And again I am doing these, because they are performance-oriented roles. I do keep getting offers, where I am asked to play a mother of a 15-16 year old. I don’t think I want to do such roles so soon.

You are playing a reel-life producer in the forthcoming Dekhna Na Bhule…
That’s true. I play this ambitious producer, who wants to make a reality-based show. So I rope in a media-savvy uncle to let me shoot his niece’s wedding. And the entire confusion and funny sequences which follow make the story. It’s a light romantic comedy meant to make the audience smile.

Irrfan Khan is your co-star in the film. Coming from commercial cinema, how comfortable are you relating to an actor from the parallel stream?
Firstly, lines between commercial and parallel cinema today are blurring if not on its last legs. And secondly, as I said, I am no more your archetypal over-sentimental female protagonist running around the trees. Irrfan is no doubt a terrific actor. I had heard a lot about his latent talent even before we started the film. Since both of us do character driven roles, it is easy to understand the other.

With acting and kids, how much time do you devote to your production house?
Actually, hardly anything. Main Hoon Na was our last release. I have to give time to my acting assignments and my family. As for Dreamz Unlimited, there is Shah Rukh and Aziz (Mirza), who keep writing scripts and scrapping them. When they come up with something concrete and want me to do the running around rather than running around trees, I will.

One hears that Dreamz Unlimited are about to be shattered…?
Rumours again. Dreamz Unlimited still has a long way to go. Though I am not able to give it too much time, we are certainly looking at ways in which the production house can grow. I agree we have certain areas of disagreement, but that is obvious when you work as a team. I hope we come up with something better soon, so that all these rumours are put to rest.

Will you act in any Dreamz project henceforth?
Absolutely. If there is a script, which demands an actress like me, I will be more than happy to do it. Of course, I will not do a film that doesn’t have a suitable character, just because it comes from my production house. You might as well take a sensible decision when you buck is at stake.

Given the busy schedule, what happens to your plans of settling in London. We did hear of that after your second son Arjun’s birth…
Don’t go by hearsay. Settling in London was never on the cards. I went there only for my son’s birth. Now that he is fit and fine, I am back to Mumbai and Bollywood. Even if my nature of work changes in terms of the kind of roles I take up, I have no plans of packing my bags. There’s still a lot more I can do here.

In Hollywood, actresses blossom when they mature. Roles are specially scripted for them. Do you miss that trend in Bollywood?
See, I won’t make any sweeping statement like write roles specially keeping me in mind. But Bollywood is in some ways still to develop, and so are our audiences who would still like seeing chocolate heroes and heroines falling in love. Anyway today the scene is much better than what it was a decade back. A married actress then could play only a mother or a sister. Today I at least have exigent roles to essay.

By Qamar Zaman