More than just a pretty face

MUMBAI: Actor Kareena Kapoor feels she has managed to strike the right balance between commercial and meaningful cinema. Hailing from an illustrious film family, she says she can’t do films where all she has to do is look good.

“I enjoy acting. Acting is in my blood, it is in my genes, it is in my DNA and you can see that on screen I like doing different roles. I can’t do just those films where I am looking pretty and sing and dance around trees. I want to act,” said Kapoor.

The actor considers her debut film, Refugee (2000) to have helped her overcome certain hurdles. “Refugee was a very special film because I always wanted to prove myself as an actor and not to be known just as a glamorous doll. Films like Refugee, Chameli, Omkara, Jab We Met, 3 Idiots and Kurbaan have all been very different. I don’t think any other (female) actor has been able to do such a variety of roles. So the journey, I think, has been colourful,” said the 29-year-old actor.

Nine years after Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), where she played Kajol’s younger sister, Kareena Kapoor has teamed up with Kajol in Sidharth Malhotra’s directorial debut We Are Family which is being produced by Karan Johar. She is elated to once again share the frame with the senior actor.

“I think it’s an exciting challenge to be working with Kajol. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham we didn’t have too many scenes together, but in this film we are both in the same frame. We both live in the same house, have equally powerful roles; in fact, mine is the most complex and complicated part. It’s very easy to be emotional and gain sympathy but very difficult to win over the sympathy (of the audience) and I hope I could achieve that,” she said.

We Are Family is the Hindi adaptation of Hollywood hit Stepmom which released in 1998. Arjun Rampal plays the role of the father which was given to Ed Harris did in the original, while Kajol steps into Susan Sarandon’s shoes as a divorced mother. Kapoor plays the same role that Julia Roberts did, “I am absolutely honoured that Karan and Sidharth thought that I could do Julia Roberts’ role because to me she is the finest (female) actor,” said Kapoor.

However, Kapoor feels that the adaptation could have been more current, “It’s a very desi film. I think it should have been made more contemporary as Indian audiences are ready for that. It’s about the journey of two women. They start off hating each other and due to unforeseen circumstances they end up loving each other.”

There are three child stars, Aanchal Munjal, Nominath Ginsburg and Diya Sonecha, in the film, but the actor didn’t have to handle them. However, she is all praise for their professional behaviour on the sets. “In the film, I didn’t have to be with the kids because they had their mother (Kajol). The children were really lovely, they didn’t get impatient. They were acting like adults, not like children,” said Kapoor.

We Are Family is set to release on September 3.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2010.