Aishwarya Rai

Did you do your stunts yourself? What was it like?
A couple of them with safety first being the mantra always in every film set. But nevertheless a lot of the work was something that we as a team of actors and technicians did push ourselves in terms of what you deliver and also in terms of what the audience gets to actually experience on screen when they see the artist/ actor in person, pushing themselves beyond the norm.

The high point probably was actually at Orabi Gorge, where we had the jump, there’s this one moment where Hrithik’s character Aryan challenges Sunehri, (that’s me) in the film to jump, given the premise of the scene which when you see you will enjoy it.

It was an absolute high, and never in my life have I experienced just literally jumping off the edge, and there is a bungee jumping. There was quite a moment for both Hrithik and me, because just next us, there was a trickle of a waterfall so we were actually seeing the water drops just literally going down in reality what visually we refer to as slow motion, literally the drops were going down forever.

We hear you are playing a negative role in Dhoom 2, what was it like and what was the rationale behind taking on this role with negative shades.
Firstly all the talk on a lot of aspects of Dhoom and my character in the film, I guess assumptions are fine. I am wondering whether at this point in time I should shed more light or let the audience go discover for themselves in the theatres. Speculation has been aplenty right from the time we starting filming, so it’s all a lot of assumptions.

Slating or slotting the characters already I don’t think should be done, because I will not define my character as negative or positive for that matter because she’s a live wire in the film. It was definitely exciting for me to discover and deliver Sunehri simply because while having relatively regular pieces of conversation within that its layered, in a single moment she’s striking a conversation, in a single moment she exudes excitement, almost hero worship to Mr. A, in the next second she’s turning on an attitude and challenging him, almost reckoning to be an equal, so in that sense, just like Mr. A takes the audience a while to figure out, so does Sunehri.


This is your first film with Hrithik and Bipasha, how was the experience of working with them?
Superlative, I mean it really has been fantastic, be it Abhishek, Uday, I think the fact that the 3 of them have known each other since childhood, they constantly share their anecdotes which just made you feel that you belong to those bunch of kids because it was so wonderful to see them spontaneously and at the most unexpected moments, have a recollection and relive it, made you feel you were there as well. And the brief moments that I got to share with Bipasha, I must say she’s a real cool girl, and I am glad we are a team on this film, because the camaraderie was genuine, the spirit was fab and the energy was about being team players, and that’s something that everybody brought to the table very professionally while on the job and aside it just kept the energy what it should be, on a film like this, very naturally. On whole, we had a blast while making the film.

What do you think of the music of Dhoom 2 as compared to Dhoom?
I would never make comparisons, because the fact is that Dhoom was a super and a raging success, and I am glad that Dhoom 2 has received with equal if not more responsive. It has been superlative, and I think it was very clever to have the first promo go on air with KANK; it was very gratifying for the whole team to have received such a tremendous response, where the audience was already in Dhoom 2 while watching the movie! This is something we heard in first person, and as a team we were overjoyed. It was very very good to know that people were so looking forward to this film, with so much anticipation, we’ve had a blast making it, and so we can’t wait to share it with our audiences.

Did you watch Dhoom and what did you think of the film?
It’s evident that because at that point it was definitely a cluster breaker. The identity is youth but I take it as just going by the success. I sincerely believe that age is a state of the mind, even 20 years later I will say this. Cinema is the perfect dream world, the closest thing to experiencing any moment in person. So it was good to know that Dhoom was well embraced, so when approached with the idea of Dhoom 2 touted as a sequel was brilliant, and Adi knew what he was doing when he came up with this idea, going by the response. We were very very happy to be on team. At the end of the day it’s a fab experience for the team as well as for the audiences. It’s like college will always be an experience everybody cherishes and the pulse and pace of this movie, is one that is universally enjoyed.

You have so many releases coming up, what makes Dhoom 2 special?
It’s definitely a first in my career and it’s interesting it’s happened in the 10th year of my film career. Of course that’s by choice; it’s not a moment if I may say so, a moment I have been waiting for to happen to me. This was a tough offer to resist, if this was what I wanted to bring on board in terms of playing an out and out westernized character, so obviously youth oriented, trendsetting, fashionable and fun, but at the same time racy, evidently hot and super cool, this was the perfect premise to do so. So yes I chose to project the way I never have before on this film.

If you do find Sunehri sexy at every given point, Sunehri just is. So I thought it was great where, wearing shorts or short skirts, dressing a certain way were just natural to the character. It’s not something I needed to explore for the sake of the apparent, it was a definite character created, and it’s just the language of the entire film and of all the characters.

What was the best moment during the course of shooting the film?
The film as a whole but I must confess, I thoroughly enjoyed the team, the gang off-screen as well. There has been a lot of talk about the fitness regime, something that I only explored very honestly for a month to 5 weeks before we started the film. While filming, the fun part was that everybody would be in the gym, not just the actors. And it was fun because while we would all try to get into a bit of a routine, I think we were just having so much fun hanging around, it was like a college/road trip. It was all so much fun, on set and after hours. I think that is by far the best memory the best is everything about D2 is fabulous while making it, but I think we’ve come away being really good friends beyond being co-stars, and its something that I really cherish and hold dear to my heart.

How did you enjoy shooting on location in South Africa and a message for your fans there?
South Africa incidentally has a home turf kind of significance in my life, because yes, I did win my title in Sun City of Johannesburg, and I have been there a couple of times, so my memories are very very warm, and people have been extremely loving in South Africa. I personally share a very warm bond with our audience out there and I can just extend a heartfelt thank you, for their love and blessings and good wishes all through my career and it was great fun now coming back there and shooting for Dhoom 2, a fun experience for us. I am glad that every time I have come there and worked or filmed, or participated in a pageant, I have come away with super success and a lot of love and great memories, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Did you do any kind of special preparation for this role?
Like I said one was the visual was very imperative, as a pre-requisite, its something we as a team agreed we definitely would work on, as I do work on every film, here it was a well toned bodies as we look around, naturally dress a certain way, feel natural and comfortable in it. So that was a body type that I was determined to work on, and I was very glad to discover that the first time in my life that I have got down to working out, my body responds very quickly and its very reassuring to know that, so with a little bit of focused time and work, it was good to know that we can achieve it, and bring that on board. The clothing feels like me, it feels natural even if it means seeing me for the first time in the western mould. It doesn’t seem uncomfortable, it doesn’t seem unnatural, and that’s something Anaita & me worked on it together and arrived at Sunehri.

We decided that we would go with a different hand in terms of makeup and hair styling this again would bring newness to board, so I worked with Subbu on it. We did one day of a look shoot as in a test with my dear friend Farooque and once we arrived at Sunehri, there she was bang on ready to go on set. Obviously the final verdict is the nod from Adi. Also it has worked out really well, fortunately or coincidentally that currently I am having so many different releases, Umrao Jaan Dhoom 2 and Guru, and ahead there’s Provoked and Last Legion, it’s great that not only visually we have arrived at a specific character, but also in terms of her mannerisms her personality is very very specific and can be identified as someone who belongs solely to this film.

What next? Can we expect to see you doing some more action films in the international front?
Well I started in fact just pre Dhoom 2 I made Last Legion, which was definitely action not contemporary though and I experienced sword fighting and I am a warrior in that film, so I completed that movie before I started Dhoom, so that would technically be my first experience in the action genre, but it wasn’t in the contemporary times, so I am glad that within the year, between last year and now, I have actually got through and tasted action spectrum in Roman times and contemporary biker times and its been a lot of fun, its been a huge adrenaline rush, exactly what I was looking forward to and like I tease I have tasted blood, I can’t wait to have more such experiences because they are really fulfilling and it’s a rush that can’t be explained, but it’s a definite high, that’s the most fantastic part of our job, because we get to experience which probably people just think or dream about, and irrespective of what point in time of your life, to what space you are physically in, where you are, it could from the ridiculous to the superlative in excitement, but the fact is we get to experience life through our film making and I think that’s a blessing.

Source: b4utv