Enlarge Image
Sneha Mahadevan (DNA; April 8, 2015)

She’s Indian, of French descent, speaks Tamil fluently and is working hard in Bollywood, an industry known for stereotyping and slotting everyone. Her ‘white girl’ image used to be a hindrance, but her successful outings Yeh Jaawani Hai Deewani and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara made sure that tag became a thing of the past. After her commercially viable successes, she decided to invest time and energy in Shonali Bose’s Margarita With A Straw, an unconventional film that traces the story of Laila, a woman affected by cerebral palsy and her zest for life. Excerpts from a conversation...

Margarita... was stuck for a long time. Did Aamir Khan’s presence at the trailer launch help give the film the required push?
Kiran Rao and Aamir Khan have really been phenomenal. It was actually Kiran who hounded Aamir to watch the film as she had seen it and loved it. When Aamir saw the film, he got very emotional and told us that. Thereafter, he attended the trailer launch. He is not getting anything out of this, nor is he getting paid for the same. He came to the event purely out of his love for good cinema. His presence definitely helped.

Since the film deals with a sensitive issue, do you think the audience will have the impression that it’s a serious film?
Actually, it is a comedy. Laila is a very happy soul. She goes through a lot of trauma and loses out on a lot of things due to her disability, but she is one of those people who will always smile and get up after a fall. She has the ability to laugh at herself. There are a lot of funny moments in the film and after the first 10 minutes, I am sure you won’t feel pity for her. She is quite chaloo and doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Anurag Kashyap has directed you in two films. Will there be a hat-trick?
I don’t really know because sometimes I wonder about it too. But I’m sure if something good comes up, we will work together. I mean, why not? Beyond that, I have decided to absolutely not talk about my personal life because there is nothing more to say.