Making behenji cool

She tentatively steps out of her make-up room in a transparent purple lace gown with a fitted bodice underneath. The dress exposes much of her long legs, something she studiously avoids doing in her films. Her manager instructs all the men loitering around the photo studio in central Mumbai to vacate the room to put her client, actress Sonakshi Sinha, at ease. Before the photographer turns his lens on her, she takes last-minute approvals from her staff. “Are you sure this looks fine?” she asks, unconvinced by their nods of approval. But once she looks into the camera and the volume of the R... Rajkumar soundtrack is turned up, her apprehensions melt away. She confidently pouts and poses, playing the perfect cover girl at a fashion magazine shoot. Within minutes, she slips into a new outfit, this time a more comfortable knee-length skirt. Seated at the dressing table in a corner of the room, she sips a glass of diet cola and fidgets with her phone as her hairstylist rolls her tresses into curlers. “I hate looking at the mirror. I’m the one actress who gets ready the fastest and is out of the van. I barely take half an hour to do it. I don’t have the patience,” says the 26-year-old with a laugh.

Sinha’s release next week, Holiday — A soldier is never off duty , is her first this year. She’s currently filming her maiden Tamil film, Lingaa , a period saga which will see her romance the 60-plus superstar Rajinikanth. Last year, Sinha acted in four films — Lootera, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara! , Bullet Raja and R... Rajkumar — and made special song appearances in two. That’s the amount of work some actors do over two years. She’s used to filming three to four movies at a time, sometimes working in double shifts. Director Prabhu Dheva, who’s worked with her in R... Rajkumar and Rowdy Rathore , and is now wrapping up their third collaboration, Action Jackson , jokingly accuses her of confusing all her characters. The best part about working at this breathless pace, she says, is that there’s never any time to brood over failures. Not that she’s seen much of that — four of her nine films have reached the hallowed ₹100-crore benchmark.

Scene stealer

Of her recent releases, Sinha stood out in the period romance Lootera , where she played Pakhi, the dying daughter of a Bengali zamindar. A welcome change from the loud, mindless, albeit successful masala entertainers that have dominated her repertoire, she delivered a fine performance, mature beyond her years. “I felt like a point was proved. I was being looked down on for the films I choose. People feel that you don’t need great acting chops to do them. Trust me, playing those over-the-top characters is not at all easy. But after Lootera , everybody shut up,” she says.

Accustomed to polarised feedback on almost all her films, she admits it felt special to be unanimously lauded. “Vidya Balan spoke to me on the phone for half an hour. She said no actress has ever played a tuberculosis patient better than me. It meant the world coming from her,” she says, dreamily, closing her eyes. Abhinav Kashyap, who directed Sinha in her debut film Dabangg (2010), says he never doubted her calibre. “I wasn’t surprised at all by the performance. The makers of Lootera consulted me before approaching Sonakshi, and I strongly recommended her. I knew she was up to the part,” he says.

Despite the glowing reviews, Lootera was curiously absent from the nomination lists of the countless awards shows this year. Although Sinha was consistently nominated for the best actress award, the rest of the cast and crew didn’t find a mention. “Disheartening how Lootera has been held back from most of the nominations this year. Didn’t they call it a masterpiece, poetry in motion, world-class and technically superior film when it released? That seems like qualification enough to be out there,” tweeted the actress in January. She further vocalised her hurt while accepting an award, saying it was unfair that her co-star in the film, Ranveer Singh, didn’t receive a nomination.

When filmmakers approach her for story narrations, Sinha makes sure she has her mother, Poonam Sinha, by her side to vet the project. It’s a well-known fact that she’s bound by a strict no-kissing, no-stripping policy. “We come from a certain kind of family. I will not let my daughter wear skimpy clothes or dance at a wedding. And why should she when she’s achieved so much without it. In fact, after Dabangg , everybody thought she was a breath of fresh air. She is like the daughter every parent wants and wife every husband looks for,” says Sinha’s mother in a telephone interview. This is perhaps why Sinha is rarely asked to play an urban girl her age. All her characters hail from the same social background and are dressed demurely in a salwar-kameez or sari. “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this, but Lootera also had an intimate kissing scene. I told Vikram (director Vikramaditya Motwane) his film was fantastic but there was no way I could do that scene. And he changed it. I guess he knew nobody could play Pakhi like me. So some people do accommodate. And if they can’t, I totally understand. No hard feelings. I don’t see the point in doing something I’m not comfortable with.”

Box office first

Post- Lootera , Sinha says she’s noticed a slight change in the roles offered to her. She was particularly excited about a biopic on Dalbir Kaur, the sister of Sarabjit Singh, who died in a Lahore prison after languishing there for 22 years on espionage charges. But she walked out of the film later. Apart from Lingaa and Action Jackson , she has Tevar starring Arjun Kapoor which, again like some of her other movies, is a remake of a film from the South. Holiday , too, is a remake of the Tamil film Thuppakki . Sinha is unapologetic about her choices. She admits it will take an extraordinary script to make her accept something against her grain. “I’m very happy in my space. I love all the singing, dancing and action. Those are the kind of films I like to watch as an audience,” she says. She sees no harm in having her midriff constantly pinched or being referred to as ‘ mera maal ’ by Akshay Kumar’s character in Rowdy Rathore and being the ‘bhaari piece’ in the Son of Sardaar. Laughing at reviews that label her movies as socially regressive, Sinha says, “Everybody has an opinion. I don’t read reviews because I know critics don’t appreciate my movies, and they never will. Mujhe box office se matlab hain (I’m more concerned about the box office).”

Given that most of her films — be it Holiday, Son of Sardaar or Dabangg — are driven by their leading male superstars, it appears as if Sinha might be selling herself short. As for Lingaa , it is understood that actresses normally have little to do in a Rajini movie. Producer/director Arbaaz Khan, who gave Sonakshi her first break, feels otherwise. “I think she’s doing the smart thing by working with so many superstars early in her career. The problem with doing too many women-centric films is that you have fewer projects to choose from and not many male stars want to work with you. Also, if you peak too early, it is difficult to sustain,” he says. Kashyap concurs. “Talent alone won’t run your kitchen. That’s the unfortunate truth. I think the kind of films she’s doing will help her develop a solid fan base, and maybe later she can branch out into different roles. Even Madhuri Dixit started her career with such films.”

That plump kid?

From a young age, Sinha has been a visitor at superstar Salman Khan’s Bandra home. Their fathers, yesteryear actor-turned-BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha and writer Salim Khan, are close friends. In the late ’70s, they worked on films like Shaan, Dostana and Kaala Pathar . “Whenever we would meet, Salman always said I had a filmi keeda in me,” remembers Sinha. “But I never felt like a budding actress. Firstly, I was close to 92kg. I never got any attention from boys. Also, growing up in a film family, I had seen fame and recognition up close. I’m used to people being in awe of my father. So nothing about that life fascinated me.” Apart from Anil Kapoor’s children — Sonam, Rhea and Harshvardhan, and Hema Malini’s daughters — Esha and Ahana, who lived down the lane from her home, she doesn’t remember having any star kids as friends.

“My close friends are from school and college. Even now I prefer to meet them instead of attending film parties. When I’m busy, they come and spend time with me on the set,” says Sinha. Ask her about her favourite movies and she draws a blank. After some serious thought, she says, “Actually, I haven’t even seen Sholay . I’ve seen a few of my father’s films, but other than that I never watched movies much. I was more interested in sports.”

Her mother, a beauty pageant winner in the ’60s, feels Sinha would have been equally successful had she pursued fashion designing, a subject she studied for three years at Mumbai’s SNDT College. “As a child, she used to make beautiful sketches. She would throw them around and I would keep collecting them. During her course, she topped all her assignments and was even made Student of the Year. Maybe some day she can start her own label,” she says. She reckons things turned around for Sinha a few years ago at the Lakme Fashion Week. Sent as an intern from college on a stipend of ₹500 a day, she was asked to escort the VIPs to their seats. One of them turned out to be Salman, who was taken aback to see her there. He once again told her to start shedding weight and consider a career in films.

Over the next few years, Sinha made a conscious effort to drop the kilos. “It took me so long — almost two years or more. I used to visit the health club twice a day, and in between I would sleep because I was too tired to do anything else,” she says. Yet, she insists this was not in preparation for a film career, but to get healthier. Currently at her leanest, Sinha has hired a personal trainer and has miraculously managed to drop a few dress sizes. “When Salman told me he wanted Sonakshi for Dabangg, I was a little surprised. I remembered her as a plump kid. I hadn’t seen the transformation,” says Khan.

Kashyap was equally sceptical of signing her on. He was especially worried after seeing a few unimpressive pictures taken by an amateur. He felt more at ease after befriending her on Facebook, and when he finally met her at Salman’s house, he knew his search was over. “I found her very attractive and she spoke good Hindi. She was very confident,” he says. Her first-ever shot for Dabanng, in which she ran into a hospital after her brother in the film was injured, was approved in a single take. “Sonakshi was not at all nervous. She gets her confidence from her father. But unlike him, she’s punctual on the sets. She saves her producers a lot of money by being on time. Her father used to be late by many hours. That’s one thing she’s not learnt from him,” says her mother, adding quickly that her husband would make up for his tardiness by finishing his scenes at the speed of lightning.

The ‘content’ star

In conversations with Sinha’s family, friends and staff, a word that often crops up to describe her is ‘content’. By her own admission, she is the least competitive or ambitious actress of her generation. On the talk show Koffee with Karan, Kareena Kapoor recently said that Sinha would make a good housewife if she weren’t an actress. Sinha said she was spot on. She confessed that her only goal till recently had been to get married and have two children. Those plans are clearly on hold for now and, yet, she says she still gives off a “gharelu vibe”. “I have no insecurities. I have not conformed to what is expected of a typical heroine nowadays. And that’s because I’m so comfortable with myself. Young girls tell me I’m a role model. I can’t think of a better compliment,” she says.

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