Rai is comfortable doing Tamil films

MUMBAI: With four Tamil films on her CV - including this year’s hit Endhiran (Robot) - Aishwarya Rai Bachchan claims to be far more comfortable speaking in the southern Indian language.

“I am definitely far more comfortable and more confident. I won’t risk breaking into a conversation because I don’t do that on a daily basis,” Rai said.

“I am familiar with the language because I have travelled so much. I understand it, and I respect the language; so I don’t want to break into a conversation in it, unless it’s in a group which is very forgiving of grammatical errors.”

“I am far more confident today than I was during Iruvar or Jeans,” said Rai, who also starred in the bilingual film Raavan by director Mani Ratnam.

Filmmaker S Shankar’s latest sci-fi film Endhiran (which released in Hindi as Robot) released on October 1 and premiered in Pakistan on October 22. The film, which cost $38 million to make, is India’s most expensive production.

Bachchan maintains that unlike other Indian actors, she has rarely worked in typically entertaining films.

“The character (in Robot) was not difficult to get into the skin of. It’s a kind of role that any leading actor would do. In my case, it has been rare.”

Bachchan plays a medical student in the film, which also stars one of India’s biggest superstars — Rajinikanth. Endhiran is Rai’s second film with Shankar after Jeans in 1998.

“Shankar has a made an entertaining film. He has taken entertainment to the next level and has introduced something technically ahead of what we have seen in recent times;it was more exciting to see the film come together. In terms of my contribution, I was just happy to work in this film,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2010.