I’m itching to direct - Sonam Kapoor

NEW DEHLI: She started her Bollywood career as director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s assistant before she turned to acting. Even though she has only starred in three films (Saawariya, Delhi-6 and I Hate Luv Storys) Sonam Kapoor is already itching to get back to direction.

“My first love is acting and I will be acting till the day I die. I love my job. But, yes, the field of direction is always open for me. I think I shall direct in a couple of years. I am literally itching to direct,” Kapoor said.

“I need a little more time to figure out what I want to direct and take care of the script and other logistics. But, honestly, I would like to give myself at least 10 years before I go behind the camera once again,” she added.

The actor has been trying to do something different in each of her films. Her debut film Saawariya was based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story White Nights; Delhi-6 was about the life in the walled city, and her recent release I Hate Luv Storys is a modern day love story. She is now waiting for the release of her home production Aisha next month.

Currently in Scotland for the shooting of Mausam, which stars Shahid Kapoor, she is looking forward to coming back to India to promote Aisha.

“I am coming back home on July 27 to promote Aisha,” she said.

Kapoor plays the principal character in Aisha - a young, free-spirited, stylish and spoilt high-society girl obsessed with match making. Based on Jane Austen’s classic novel Emma, the film is about Aisha’s life and her friends.

What makes the film special for Sonam Kapoor is that it has been produced by her younger sister Rhea Kapoor and has the backing of her father, Anil Kapoor.

Sonam has been zipping across the world to fulfill her work commitments.

From promoting I Hate Luv Storys in India and going back to the sets of Anees Bazmee’s romantic comedy Thank You opposite Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Kapoor’s Mausam, she has been constantly on the move.

But she doesn’t find it tiring.

“I don’t want a break. Working is a holiday for me. I have a lot of work lined up till December, then maybe I will take two weeks off. But I really don’t believe in the concept of taking a month off,” said Kapoor.

In fact, it is her packed work schedule that is making her indecisive about two international projects that have been offered to her. One is a Ben Stiller movie, while the other is a co-production between her father and Italian actor Sophia Loren’s son Edoardo Ponti.

“Yes, I have been offered these two films. I have read both the scripts. The Ben Stiller one is a comedy. I have liked both of them, but I can’t give any of them a thought till I work out my dates. My schedule is jam-packed. I don’t know when they want to shoot - so accordingly, if my dates are free, I’m all for them.”

“I have been quite appreciated for what I have done. I want to do work that makes me happy and I am quite an impulsive decision-maker. I don’t mind smaller but offbeat films, and not so much mainstream stuff. By mainstream, I mean films with big budgets and no story,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2010.